^^ 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  STUDIES  IN  ENGLISH 


LEIGH  HUNT'S  RELATIONS  WITH 
BYRON,  SHELLEY  AND  KEATS 


LEIGH  HUNT'S  RELATIONS  WITH 
BYRON,  SHELLEY  AND  KEATS 


BY, 


BARNETTE  MILLER,  Ph.D. 


THE   COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY   PRESS 
1910 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,    1910 
By  The  Columbia  University  Press 

Printed  from  type  April,  1910 


Press  of 

The  hew  Era  PRiNirNG  company 

Lancaster,  pa. 


LliUlARY 

UNIVERSITY  01'  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBAIU 


This  Monograph  has  been  approved  by  the  Department  of  Eng- 
lish in  Columbia  University  as  a  contribution  to  knowledge  worthy 

of  publication. 

A.  H.  THORNDIKE, 

Secretary. 


PREFACE 

The  relations  of  Leigh  Hunt  to  Byron,  Shelley  and  Keats 
have  been  treated  in  a  fragmentary  way  in  various  works  of 
biography  and  criticism,  and  from  many  points  of  view.  Yet 
hitherto  there  has  been  no  attempt  to  construct  a  whole  out  of 
the  parts.  This  led  Professor  Trent  to  suggest  the  subject  to 
me  about  five  years  ago.  The  publication  of  the  results  of  my 
investigation  has  been  unfortunately  delayed  for  nearly  four 
years  after  the  work  was  finished. 

I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  S.  L.  Wolff  for  reading  the  first  and 
second  chapters ;  to  Professors  G.  R.  Krapp,  W.  W.  Lawrence, 
A.  H.  Thorndike,  of  Columbia  LTniversity,  and  Professor 
William  Alan  Nielson,  now  of  Harvard,  for  suggestions 
throughout.  I  am  especially  glad  to  have  this  opportunity  to 
record  my  gratitude  to  Prof.  Trent,  whose  inspiration  and 
guidance  and  kindness  from  beginning  to  end  have  alone  made 
completion  of  the  study  possible. 

B.  M. 

Constantinople,  Turkey, 
March  21,  1910. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER     I.     Leigh  Hunt  1784-1823 i 

CHAPTER  11.     Keats   32 

CHAPTER  HI.     Shelley   65 

CHAPTER  IV.     Byron  and  The  Liberal 88 

CHAPTER   V.     The  Cockney  School  121 

CHAPTER  VI.     Conclusion 159 

Bibliography 164 


Mrf;cANViLE  Library 

NEW  YORK. 


CHAPTER   1 

Revolutionary  tendencies  of  the  age — The  Reaction — Counter  Reform 
movement — Leigh  Hunt — His  Ancestry — School  days — Career  as  a  Journa- 
list— Imprisonment — Finances — Politics — Religion — Poetry. 

Since  contemporary  social  conditions  played  an  important 
part  in  the  relations  of  Leigh  Hunt  with  Byron,  Shelley,  and 
Keats,  a  brief  survey  of  the  period  in  question  is  necessary  to 
an  understanding  of  the  forces  at  play  on  their  intellect  and 
conduct.  The  English  mind  had  been  admirably  prepared  for 
the  principles  of  the  French  Revolution  by  the  progressive 
tendency  since  the  Revolution  of  1688.  The  new  order  prom- 
ised by  France  was  acclaimed  in  England  as  one  destined  to 
right  the  wrongs  of  humanity;  through  unending  progress  man- 
kind was  to  attain  unlimited  perfection.  Upon  such  a  pros- 
pect both  parties  were  agreed,  and  the  warnings  of  Burke  were 
vain  when  Pitt,  rationalizing,  led  the  Tories,  and  Fox,  rhapso- 
dizing, led  the  Whigs.  In  1793,  Godwin's  Political  Justice, 
with  its  anarchistic  doctrines  of  individual  perfectibility  and 
of  individual  self-reliance,  rallied  more  recruits  to  the  standard 
of  liberty,  though  his  theories  of  community  of  property  and 
annulment  of  the  marriage  bond  were  somewhat  charily  re- 
ceived. The  early  writings  of  Wordsworth,  Southey  and  Cole- 
ridge were  colored  with  enthusiasm  for  the  new  movement. 
The  agitation  and  the  enactment  of  reform  measures  made 
actual  advances  towards  the  expected  millennium. 

But  the  excesses  of  the  Revolutionary  regime  in  France 
bred  in  England,  ever  inclined  to  order,  an  opposition  in  many 
conservative  minds  that  resulted  in  positive  panic  at  the  menace 
to  state  and  church  and  property.  The  reaction  swung  the 
pendulum  far  in  the  opposite  direction  from  justice  and  philan- 
thropy. The  first  two  decades  of  the  new  century  continued 
to  suffer  from  a  counter-reform  movement  when  the  actual 
fright  had  subsided.  During  that  period,  anything  which 
savored  of  reform  was  labelled  as  seditious.     At  the  very  be- 

1 


ginning  of  this  reaction  William  Pitt's  efforts  for  the  extension 
of  the  franchise  were  summarily  put  an  end  to,  and  the  House 
of  Commons  remained  as  little  representative  of  the  English 
people  as  formerly.  Catholics  and  Non-Conformists  were 
denied,  from  the  period  of  the  union  of  Ireland  with  Eng- 
land in  1800  until  1829,  the  right  to  vote  and  to  hold  office. 
Pitt's  efforts  to  frustrate  such  discrimination  in  Ireland  were 
as  unavailing  as  in  his  own  country,  for  the  prejudices  and 
obstinacy  of  George  III,  in  both  instances,  neutralized  the 
good  intentions  of  the  liberal  Ministry.  The  corrupt  influence 
of  the  Crown  in  Parliament  was  undiminished  except  by  the 
disfranchisement  of  persons  holding  contracts  from  the  crown 
and  of  incumbents  of  revenue  offices.  The  wars  with  Amer- 
ica and  with  France  greatly  increased  the  public  debt,  threat- 
ened the  national  credit  and  burdened  with  taxes  an  already 
overburdened  people.  Oppressive  industrial  conditions  made 
the  life  of  the  masses  still  more  unendurable.  The  rise  of 
manufacturing  and  the  consequent  adoption  of  inventions  that 
dispensed  with  much  hand  labor  decreased  the  number  of  the 
employed  and  reduced  wages,  while  the  enormous  increase  in 
population  during  the  eighteenth  century  multiplied  the  number 
of  the  idle  and  the  poor.  It  is  true  that  the  wealth  of  the 
country  became  much  greater  through  the  development  of  new 
resources,  but  the  profits  were  distributed  among  the  few 
and  gave  no  relief  to  the  majority.  The  government  was  in- 
different to  the  sufferings  of  the  poor,  to  the  severity  of  the 
penal  code,  to  the  horrors  of  the  slave  traffic.  In  Great  Britain 
the  Habeas  Corpus  act  was  suspended,  public  assemblies  were 
forbidden,  the  press  was  more  narrowly  restricted,  right  of 
petition  was  limited,  and  the  legal  definition  of  treason  was 
greatly  extended ;  in  Scotland  the  barbarous  statute  of  trans- 
portation for  political  offenses  was  revived ;  in  Ireland  industry 
and  commerce  were  discouraged. 

The  re-accession  of  the  Tories  to  power  in  1807,  followed 
by  their  long  ascendancy  and  abuse  of  power,  led  inevitably  to 
a  revival  of  the  questions  of  revolution  and  of  reform.  Lord 
Byron,  Shelley  and  Leigh  Hunt  w6re  among  the  leaders  of  this 
second   band   of   agitators,   the    "  new    camp,"    as    Professor 


3 

Dowden  has  designated  them.  It  was  their  love  of  humanity, 
perhaps  to  a  greater  degree  than  their  poetic  genius  and  their 
aesthetic  ideals,  that  made  these  men  akin.  Of  the  four  poets 
with  whom  we  deal  Keats  alone' was  comparatively  indifferent 
to  the  strife  about  him. 

Besides  the  political  background  of  the  times,  personal  in- 
fluence and  literary  imitation  enter  into  consideration  in  the 
present  study.  Especially  in  the  case  of  Hunt,  whose  unique 
personality  has  been  so  variously  interpreted,  a  brief  biograph- 
ical review  is  necessary.  James  Henry  Leigh  Hunt  was  born 
October  19,  1784,  in  the  village  of  Southgate,  Middlesex.  He 
was  descended  on  the  father's  side  from  "  Tory  cavaliers  "  of 
West  Indian  adoption,  and  on  the  mother's  from  American 
Quakers  of  Irish  extraction — an  exotic  combination  of  Celtic 
and  Creole  strains  which  never  coalesced  but  in  turn  affected 
his  temperament.  His  father  was  an  engaging  and  gifted 
clergyman  who  quoted  Horace  and  drank  claret — a  sanguine, 
careless  child  of  the  South  who  made  the  acquaintance  alike  of 
good  society  and  of  debtor's  prisons.  This  parent's  cheerful- 
ness and  courage  were  his  most  fortunate  legacies  to  his  son ; 
a  speculative  turn  in  matters  of  religion  and  government  and  a 
general  financial  irresponsibility  constituted  his  most  unfortu- 
nate legacy.  His  mother  was  as  shrinking  as  his  father  was 
convivial,  but,  like  her  husband,  possessed  a  strong  sense  of  duty 
and  of  loyalty.  Her  son  inherited  her  love  of  books  and  of 
nature.  Of  his  heritage  from  his  parents  Leigh  Hunt  wrote: 
"  I  may  call  myself,  in  every  sense  of  the  word  ...  a  son  of 
mirth  and  melancholy;  .  .  .  And,  indeed,  as  I  do  not  remem- 
ber to  have  ever  seen  my  mother  smile,  except  in  sorrowful 
tenderness,  so  my  father's  shouts  of  laughter  are  now  ringing 
in  my  ears."^ 

As  Leigh  Hunt  was  heir  to  his  ancestry  in  an  unusual  degree, 
so  in  an  extraordinary  measure  was  the  child  father  of  the 
man.  The  atmosphere  of  the  home,  tense  with  discussions  of 
theology  and  politics  and  bitter  with  hardships  of  poverty  and 
prisons,  gave  him  a  precocious  acquaintance  with  weighty  mat- 

^  Autobiography  of  Leigh  Hunt,   I,  p.   34. 


ters  and  with  many  miseries.  In  1791  he  entered  Christ's 
Hospital.  Like  Shelley  he  rebelled  against  the  time-honored 
custom  of  fagging,  and  chose  instead  a  beating  every  night 
with  a  knotted  handkerchief.  He  avoided  personal  encounters 
in  self-defense,  but  was  valiant  enough  where  others  were  con- 
cerned, or  where  a  principle  was  involved.  Haydon  said :  "  He 
was  a  man  who  would  have  died  at  the  stake  for  a  principle, 
though  he  might  have  cried  like  a  child  from  physical  pain,  and 
would  have  screamed  still  louder  if  he  put  his  foot  in  the 
gutter !  Yet  not  one  iota  of  recantation  would  have  quivered 
on  his  lips,  if  all  the  elysium  of  all  the  religions  on  earth  had 
been  offered  and  realized  to  induce  him  to  do  so."- 

His  wonderful  power  of  forming  friendships — a  power  with 
which  the  present  study  is  so  much  concerned — was  first  devel- 
oped at  Christ's  Hospital.  As  he  sentimentally  expressed  it, 
"  the  first  heavenly  taste  it  gave  me  of  that  most  spiritual  of 
the  affections.  I  use  the  word  'heavenly'  advisedly;  and  I 
call  friendship  the  most  spiritual  of  the  affections,  because 
even  one's  kindred,  in  partaking  of  our  flesh  and  blood,  be- 
come, in  a  manner,  mixed  up  with  our  entire  being.  Not  that 
I  would  disparage  any  other  form  of  affection,  worshipping 
as  I  do,  all  forms  of  it,  love  in  particular,  which  in  its  highest 
state,  is  friendship  and  something  more.  But  if  I  ever  tasted 
a  disembodied  transport  on  earth,  it  was  in  those  friendships 
which  I  entertained  at  school,  before  I  dreamt  of  any  maturer 
feeling."^  Like  Shelley,  Hunt  had  so  great  an  inclination  to 
sentimentalize  and  idealize  friendship  that  sometimes  after  the 
first  brief  rhapsody  of  fresh  acquaintance  he  suffered  bitter 
disillusionment.  The  majority,  however,  of  the  ties  formed 
were  lasting.* 

*  Correspond^ence  of  Leigh  Hunt,  I,  p.  332. 

^Autobiography,  I,  p.  93.  Compare  the  above  quotation  with  Shelley's 
description  of  his  first  friendship.  (Hogg,  Life  of  Percy  Bysshe  Shelley, 
pp.  23-24. 

*  This  early  passion  for  friendship,  which  developed  into  a  power  of  attract- 
ing men  vastly  more  gifted  than  himself,  brought  about  him  besides  Byron, 
Shelley  and  Keats,  such  men  as  Charles  Lamb,  Robert  Browning,  Carlyle, 
Dickens,  Horace  and  James  Smith,  Charles  Cowden  Clarke,  Vincent  Novello, 
William  Godwin,  Macaulay,  Thackeray,  Lord  Brougham,  Bentham,  Haydon, 


The  abridgements  of  the  Spectator,  set  Hunt  as  a  school 
task,  instilled  a  dislike  of  prose-writing  that  may  account  for 
his  preference  through  life  for  verse  composition,  although  he 
was  by  nature  less  a  poet  than  an  essayist.  From  Cooke's 
edition  of  the  British  Poets  he  learned  to  love  Gray,  Collins, 
Thomson,  Blair  and  Spenser — influences  responsible  in  part 
for  his  dislike  of  eighteenth  century  convention  and  for  his 
historical  prominence  in  the  romantic  movement.  Spenser  later 
became  the  literary  passion  of  his  life.  Other  books  which 
he  read  at  this  period  were  Tooke's  Pantheon,  Lempriere's 
Classical  Dictionary,  and  Spence's  Polymetis,  three  favorites 
with  Keats;  Peter  Wilkins,  Thalaba  and  German  Romances, 
three  favorites  with  Shelley.  Later  Hunt  and  Shelley's  read- 
ing was  closely  paralleled  in  Godwin's  Political  Justice,  Lucre- 
tius, Pliny,  Plato,  Aristotle,  Voltaire,  Condor cet  and  the  Dic- 
tionnaire  Philosophiqiie.  With  the  years  Hunt's  list  swelled 
to  an  almost  incredible  degree.  It  was  through  books  that  he 
knew  life. 

He  left  Christ  Hospital  in  1799.  The  eight  years  spent  there 
were  his  only  formal  preparation  for  a  literary  profession. 
He  greatly  regretted  his  lack  of  a  university  education,  but 
he  consoled  himself  by  quoting  with  true  Cockney  spirit  Gold- 
smith's saying:  "  London  is  the  first  of  Universities."^  Through 
his  father's  connections  he  met  many  prominent  men  in  London 
and  was  made  much  of.  This  premature  association  accounts 
for  some  of  the  arrogance  so  conspicvious  in  his  early  journal- 
istic work,  which,  in  middle  life,  sobered  down  into  a  harmless 
vanity. 

In  1808  Hunt  started  a  Sunday  newspaper,  The  Examiner. 
The  letter  tendering  his  resignation*'  of  a  position  in  the  office 
of  the  Secretary  of  War,  coming  from  an  inexperienced  man 
of  twenty-four  is  pompous  in  tone  and  heavy  with  the  weight 
of  his  duty  to  the  English  nation.     His  subsequent  assurance 

Hazlitt,  R.  H.  Home,  Sir  John  Swinburne,  Lord  John  Russell,  Bulwer 
Lytton,  Thomas  Moore,  Barry  Cornwall,  Theodore  Hook,  J.  Egerton  Webbe, 
Thomas  Campbell,  the  Olliers,  Joseph  Severn,  Miss  Edgeworth,  Mrs.  Gas- 
kell,  Mrs.  Browning  and  Macvey  Napier.  Hawthorne,  Emerson,  James  Rus- 
sel  Lowell  and  William  Story  sought  him  out  when  they  were  in  London. 
"  Correspondence,  I,  p.  49.  "  Ibid.,  I,  p.  44. 


and  boldness  resulted  in  1812  in  his  being  indicted  for  a  libel 
of  the  Prince  Regent,  afterwards  George  IV,  and  in  an  im- 
prisonment for  two  years  dating  from  February  15, 1813.  His 
elder  brother  John,  the  publisher  of  the  paper,  served  the  same 
sentence  in  a  separate  prison.  They  shared  between  them  a 
fine  of  ii,ooo.  By  special  dispensation  Hunt's  family  was 
allowed  to  reside  with  him  in  prison  and,  stranger  still,  he  was 
allowed  to  continue  his  work  on  the  libellous  journal.  At  the 
same  time  he  wrote  in  jail  the  Descent  of  Liberty  and  part  of 
the  Story  of  Rimini.  He  transformed  his  prison  yard  into  a 
garden  and  his  prison  room  into  a  bower  by  papering  the  walls 
with  trellises  of  roses  and  by  coloring  his  ceiling  like  the  sky. 
His  books  and  piano-forte,  his  flowers  and  plaster  casts  sur- 
rounded him  as  at  home.  Old  friends  gathered  about  and  new 
ones  sought  him  as  a  martyr  to  the  liberal  cause. 

But  the  picture  has  a  darker  side  which  it  is  necessary  to 
notice  in  order  to  understand  Hunt's  personal  relations.  An 
imaginative  and  over-sensitive  brain  in  a  feeble  body  had 
peopled  his  childhood  with  creatures  of  fear,  the  precursors 
of  the  morbid  fancies  of  later  years.  From  1805  to  1807 
he  suffered  from  a  trouble  that  seems  to  have  been  mental 
rather  than  physical,  probably  a  form  of  melancholia  or  hypo- 
chondria. He  tortured  himself  with  problems  of  metaphysics 
and  philosophy.  He  was  haunted  with  the  hallucination  that 
he  was  deficient  in  physical  courage,  and  therefore  subjected 
himself  to  all  kinds  of  tests.  At  the  beginning  of  his  impris- 
onment he  was  suffering  from  a  second  attack  of  his  malady. 
The  injurious  effects  upon  his  health  of  close  confinement  at 
this  time  can  be  traced  to  the  end  of  his  life.  After  his  release 
his  morbid  fear  of  cowardice  and  his  habit  of  seclusion  were 
so  strong  upon  him  that  for  months  at  a  time  he  would  not 
venture  out  upon  the  streets.  Yet  in  spite  of  all  this  and  of 
frequent  illnesses,  his  animal  spirits  were  invincible.  His  opti- 
mism was  proverbial ;  indeed,  it  was  a  part  of  his  religion. 
Coventry  Patmore  tells  us  that  on  entering  a  room  and  being 
presented  to  Hunt  for  the  first  time,  he  received  the  greeting 
"  This  is  a  beautiful  world,  Mr.  Patmore."^     His  wonderful 

''Memoirs  and  Correspondence  of  Coventry  Patmore,  ed.  Basil  Champney, 
I.  p.  32. 


fancy  colored  his  life  as  it  colored  his  poetry.  With  his  flow- 
ers and  his  friends  and  his  fancies  he  turned  life  into  a  per- 
petual Arcadia.  It  has  been  many  times  asserted  that  Leigh 
Hunt  was  morally  weak.  His  self-depreciation  is  largely  re- 
sponsible for  such  assertions.  It  is  true  that  he  fell  short  of 
great  accomplishment  and  that  he  was  guilty  of  small  foibles 
which  Haydon  exaggerated  into  "  petticoat  twaddling  and 
Grandisonian  cant."^  Yet  the  struggle  and  the  suffering  of  his 
life  show  more  virility  and  nobility  than  he  is  generally  cred- 
ited with,  and  prove  that  beneath  a  veneer  of  affectation  lay 
strong  and  healthy  qualities. 

A  second  lasting  and  disastrous  result  that  followed  Hunt's 
incarceration  and  that  greatly  affected  his  relations  with  Byron 
and  Shelley  was  the  crippling  of  his  finances.  While  it  cannot 
be  said  that  he  ever  showed  any  real  business  ability,  yet,  at 
the  beginning  of  the  trials  for  libel,  his  money  matters  were  in 
fair  condition.  The  heavy  fine  and  costs  permanently  disabled 
him.  In  182 1  his  affairs  were  in  such  a  bad  state  that,  with 
the  hope  of  bettering  them,  he  left  England  on  a  precarious 
journalistic  venture,  an  injudicious  step,  the  cause  of  which 
can  be  traced  to  the  lingering  effects  of  his  labors  in  the  cause 
of  liberalism.  From  1834  to  1840  his  misfortunes  reached  a 
climax.  He  sold  his  books  to  get  something  to  eat.  The  pain 
of  giving  up  his  beloved  Parnaso  Italiano  was  like  that  of  a 
violinist  parting  with  his  instrument.  He  lived  in  continual 
fear  of  arrest  for  debt.  At  the  same  time,  family  troubles 
and  ill-health  combined  to  torment  him. 

In  1844  Sir  Percy  Shelley  gave  him  an  annuity  of  £120,  and 
in  1847,  the  same  year  of  the  benefit  performance  of  Every 
Man  in  His  Humour,  he  was  granted  through  the  efforts  of 
Lord  John  Russell,  Macaulay  and  Carlyle,  an  annual  pension 
of  £200  on  the  Civil  List.  There  were  also  two  separate  grants 
of  £200  each  from  the  Royal  Bounty,  one  from  William  IV, 
and  the  other  from  Queen  Victoria.  In  his  last  years  there  is 
no  mention  made  of  want.'* 

^ Life,  Letters  and  Table  Talk  of  Benjamin  Robert  Haydon,  ed.  by  Stod- 
dard, p.  232. 

'  Correspondence,  I,  p.  272. 


8 

Hunt's  attitude  in  respect  to  money  obligations  was  unique, 
but  well-defined  and  consistent.  It  was  not,  as  is  often  in- 
ferred, either  puling  or  unscrupulous.^"  He  was  absolutely 
incapable  of  the  Skimpole  vices.^^  His  dilemmas  were  not  due 
to  indolence.  On  the  contrary,  he  labored  indefatigably  as 
results  show.  The  trouble  was  his  "  hugger-mugger  "  manage- 
ment, as  Carlyle  expressed  it.  He  adopted  William  Godwin's 
doctrine  that  the  distribution  of  property  should  depend  on 
justice  and  necessity,  and  thought  with  him  that  the  teachers 
of  religion  were  pernicious  in  treating  the  practice  of  justice 
"not  as  a  debt,  but  as  an  affair  of  spontaneous  generosity  and 
bounty.  They  have  called  upon  the  rich  to  be  clement  and 
merciful  to  the  poor.  The  consequence  of  this  has  been  that 
the  rich,  when  they  bestowed  the  slender  pittance  of  their  enor- 

'"  On  once  being  accused  of  speculation  Hunt  replied  that  he  had  never 
been  "  in  a  market  of  any  kind  but  to  buy  an  apple  or  a  flower."  {Atlan- 
tic Monthly,  LIV,  p.  470.)  Nor  did  Hunt  admire  money-getting  propensi- 
ties in  others.  He  said  of  Americans :  "  they  know  nothing  so  beautiful 
as  the  ledger,  no  picture  so  lively  as  the  national  coin,  no  music  so  ani- 
mating as  the  chink  of  a  purse."     (The  Examiner,  1808,  p.  721.) 

"  Dickens  did  Hunt  an  irreparable  injury  in  caricaturing  him  as  Harold 
Skimpole.  The  character  bore  such  an  unmistakable  likeness  to  Hunt  that 
it  was  recognized  by  every  one  who  knew  him,  yet  the  weaknesses  and  vices 
were  greatly  multiplied  and  exaggerated.  Before  the  appearance  of  Bleak 
House,  Dickens  wrote  Hunt  in  a  letter  which  accompanied  the  presenta- 
tion copies  of  Oliver  Twist  and  the  New  American  edition  of  the  Pickwick 
Papers :  "  You  are  an  old  stager  in  works,  but  a  young  one  in  faith — faith 
in  all  beautiful  and  excellent  things.  If  you  can  only  find  in  that  green 
heart  of  yours  to  tell  me  one  of  these  days,  that  you  have  met,  in  wading 
through  the  accompanying  trifles,  with  anything  that  felt  like  a  vibration 
of  the  old  chord  you  have  touched  so  often  and  soimded  so  well,  you  will 
confer  the  truest  gratification  on  your  old  friend,  Charles  Dickens." 
{Littell's  Living  Age,  CXCIV,  p.  134.) 

His  apology  after  Hunt's  death  was  complete,  but  it  could  not  destroy 
the  lasting  memory  of  an  immortal  portrait.  He  wrote :  "  a  man  who  had 
the  courage  to  take  his  stand  against  power  on  behalf  of  right — who  in 
the  midst  of  the  sorest  temptations,  maintained  his  honesty  unblemished  by 
a  single  stain — who,  in  all  public  and  private  transactions,  was  the  very 
soul  of  truth  and  honour — who  never  bartered  his  opinion  or  betrayed  his 
friend — could  not  have  been  a  weak  man  ;  for  weakness  is  always  treacher- 
ous and  false,  because  it  has  not  the  power  to  resist." 

{All    The    Year   Round,    April    12,    1862.) 


mous  wealth  in  acts  of  charity,  as  they  were  called,  took  merit 
to  themselves  for  what  they  gave,  instead  of  considering  them- 
selves delinquents  for  what  they  withheld. "^^  Godwin  held 
gratitude  to  be  a  superstition. 

Consequently,  when  in  need,  Hunt  thought  he  had  a  right  to 
assistance  from  such  friends  as  had  the  wherewithal  to  give. 
He  accepted  obligations,  as  will  be  shown  in  the  following 
chapters,  much  as  a  matter  of  course.^^  But  even  in  his  worst 
distresses,  he  never  desired  nor  accepted  promiscuous  charity; 
and  he  did  not  always  willingly  accept  aid  even  from  his 
friends.  He  refused  offers  of  help  from  Trelawney.  He  re- 
turned a  bank  bill  sent  him  by  his  sister-in-law,  £5  sent  by 
De  Wilde  as  part  of  the  Compensation  Fund,  and  $500  pre- 
sented by  James  Russell  Lowell.  In  1832  Reynell  forfeited 
i200  as  security  for  Hunt.  Twenty  years  later,  on  the  pay- 
ment of  the  first  installment  of  the  Shelley  legacy.  Hunt  dis- 
charged the  debt.^*  He  rejected  several  offers  to  pay  his  fine 
at  the  time  of  his  imprisonment.^^  Alary  Shelley,  who  more 
than  any  one  had  cause  to  complain  of  Hunt's  attitude  in  money 
matters,  wrote  in  1844  in  announcing  to  him  the  forthcoming 
annuity  from  her  son :  "  I  know  your  real  delicacy  about  money 
matters."^*^ 

Inthe  Correspondence  there  are  mysterious  allusions  made  by 
Hunt  and  by  his  son  Thornton  to  a  veiled  influence  on  Hunt's 

"  Godwin,  Enquiry  Concerning  Political  Justice,  Book  VIII,  Chap.  I. 

"  Prof.  Saintsbury  has  very  plausibly  suggested  that  a  similar  attitude  in 
Godwin,  Coleridge  and  Southey  in  respect  to  financial  assistance  was  a 
legacy  from  patronage  days.  {A  History  of  Nineteenth  Century  Literature, 
V'   33-)     The  same  might  be  said  of  Hunt. 

"  S.  C.  Hall,  A  Book  of  Memories  of  Great  Men  and  Women  of  the  Age, 
from  Personal  Acquaintance,  p.  247. 

^' His  feeling  on  the  subject  is  set  forth  clearly  in  a  letter  where  he  is 
writing  of  the  generosity  of  Dr.  Brocklesby  to  Johnson  and  Burke :  "  The 
extension  of  obligations  of  this  latter  kind  is,  for  many  obvious  reasons, 
not  to  be  desired.  The  necessity  on  the  one  side  must  be  of  as  peculiar, 
and,  so  to  speak,  of  as  noble  a  kind  as  the  generosity  on  the  other ;  and 
special  care  would  be  taken  by  a  necessity  of  that  kind,  that  the  gener- 
osity should  be  equalled  by  the  means.  But  where  the  circumstances  have 
occurred,  it  is  delightful  to  record  them."  (Hunt,  Men,  Women  and 
Books,  p.  217.) 

^'Correspondence,  II,  p.  11. 


10 

life,  to  some  one  who  acted  as  trustee  for  him  and  who,  without 
his  knowledge  or  consent,  made  indiscriminating  appeals  in  his 
behalf.  The  discovery  of  refusals  and  repulses  led  him  to 
write  the  following  to  William  Story,  through  whom  came 
Lowell's  offer :  "  Nor  do  I  think  the  man  truly  generous  who 
cannot  both  give  and  receive.  But,  my  dear  Story,  my  heart 
has  been  deeply  wounded,  some  time  back,  in  consequence  of 
being  supposed  to  carry  such  opinions  to  a  practical  extreme. 
...  It  gave  me  a  shock  so  great  that,  as  long  as  I  live,  it  will 
be  impossible  for  me  to  forego  the  hope  of  outliving  all  similar 
chances,  by  conduct  which  none  can  misinterpret."^^ 

Leigh  Hunt's  work  which  comes  into  the  period  of  his  asso- 
ciation with  Byron,  Shelley  and  Keats  falls  into  four  divisions : 
his  theatrical  criticism,  his  political  journals,  his  poetry  and 
his  miscellaneous  essays.  The  first  and  the  last,  although  im- 
portant in  themselves,  do  not  enter  into  his  relations  with  the 
three  men  in  question  and  will  not  be  considered  here.  His 
political  activity  is  important  in  his  relations  with  Byron  and 
Shelley;  his  poetry  in  his  relations  with  Keats  and  Shelley. 

In  Leigh  Hunt's  career,  the  stepmost  significant  in  its  far- 
reaching  effects  was  the  establishment  of  The  Examiner}^  Its 
professed  object  was  the  discussion  of  politics.  It  contained, 
in  addition  to  foreign  and  provincial  intelligence,  criticism  of 
the  theatre,  of  literature,  and  of  the  fine  arts.  Full  reports 
were  given  of  the  proceedings  in  Parliament.  At  different 
times,  various  series  of  articles  appeared,  such  as  the  Essays 
on  Methodism  by  Hunt,  and  TJie  Round  Table  by  Hunt  and 
Hazlitt.  Fox-Bourne  says  that  previous  to  Hunt's  Examiner 
there  had  been  weeklies  or  "  essay  sheets "  such  as  Defoe, 
Steele,  Addison  and  Goldsmith  had  developed,  and  that  there 
had  been  dailies  or  "  news  sheets  "  which  gave  bare  facts,  but 
that  The  Examiner  was  the  first  to  give  the  news  faithfully  in 

"■'Ibid.,  II,  p.  271. 

"Hunt's  work  as  a  political  journalist  had  begun  in  1806  with  The 
Statesman,  a  joint  enterprise  with  his  brother.  It  was  very  short-lived 
and  is  now  very  scarce.  Perhaps  it  is  due  to  this  rarity  that  it  is  not 
usually   mentioned   in   bibliographies   of   Hunt. 


11 

essay  style.^®  It  soon  raised  the  character  of  the  weekhes. 
During  the  first  year  the  circulation  reached  2,200,  a  large 
number  at  that  time.  Carlyle  said :  "  I  well  remember  how  its 
weekly  coming  was  looked  for  in  our  village  in  Scotland.  The 
place  of  its  delivery  was  besieged  by  an  eager  crowd,  and  its 
columns  furnished  the  town  talk  till  the  next  number  came."-*' 
Redding  says  "  everybody  in  those  days  read  The  Examiner."-'^ 
The  prospectus  contained  a  severe  criticism  of  contemporary 
journalism:-- 

"  mean  in  its  subserviency  to  the  follies  of  the  day,  very  miserably 
merry  in  its  fuss  and  stories,  extremely  furious  in  politics,  and  quite  as 
feeble  in  criticism.  You  are  invited  to  a  literary  conversation,  and  you 
find  nothing  but  scandal  and  commonplace.  There  is  a  flourish  of  trum- 
pets, and  enter  Tom  Thumb.  There  is  an  earthquake  and  a  vk^orm  is  thrown 
up  .  .  .  The  gentleman  who  until  lately  conducted  the  Theatrical  Depart- 
ment in  the  News  will  criticise  the  Theatre  in  the  Examiner  ;  and  as  the 
public  have  allowed  the  possibility  of  Impartiality  in  that  department,  we 
do  not  see  why  the  same  possibility  may  not  be  obtained  in  Politics." 

Then  followed  a  declaration  against  party  as  a  factor  in  poli- 
tics :  party,  it  was  declared,  should  not  exist  "  abstracted  from 
its  utility  " ;  in  the  present  day  every  man  must  belong  to  some 
class ;  "  he  is  either  Pittite  or  Foxite,  Windhamite,  Wilberfor- 
cite  or  Burdettite  ;  though,  at  the  same  time,  two  thirds  of  these 
disturbers  of  coffee-houses  might  with  as  much  reason  call 
themselves  Hivites,  or  Shunamites,  or  perhaps  Bedlamites."-^ 
Although  The  Examiner  thus  firmly  announced  its  intentions, 
nevertheless  in  the  heat  of  political  contest  it  soon  became  the 
organ  of  a  group  of  men  known  as  "  reformers,"  who  were 
laboring  and  clamoring  for  constitutional  and  administrative 
improvement.  It  became  the  avowed  enemy  of  the  Tory  party 
and  its  journals,  and  in  particular  of  the  ministry  during  the 

"  H.   R.   Fox-Bourne,   English  Newspapers,   I,   p.   :i76. 

^Harper's  New  Monthly  Magazine,  XL,  p.  256. 

"  Redding,  Personal  Reminiscences  of  Eminent  Men,  p.   184,  flf. 

"Contemporary  dailies  were  the  Morning  Chronicle,  Morning  Post, 
Morning  Herald,  Morning  Advertiser,  and  the  Times.  In  1813  there  were 
sixteen  Sunday  weeklies.  Among  the  weeklies  published  on  other  days, 
the  Observer  and  the  Nezvs  were  conspicuous.  In  all,  there  were  in  the 
year  1813,  fifty-six  newspapers  circulating  in  London.  (Andrews,  History 
of  British  Journalism,  Vol.  II,  p.  76.) 

^The  Examiner,  January  3,  1808. 


12 

long  Tory  ascendancy;  the  enemy,  at  times,  of  royalty  itself. 
The  prospectus  likewise  announced  an  intention  to  reform 
the  manners  and  morals  of  the  age.  Hunt  could  write  a  ser- 
mon with  the  same  ease  as  a  song  or  a  satire.  Horse-racing, 
cock-fighting  and  prize-fighting  were  condemned ;  most  of  all 
the  publication  of  scandal  and  crime.  A  passage  on  advertise- 
ments is  humorous  and  still  of  living  interest: 

"  the  public  shall  neither  be  tempted  to  listen  to  somebody  in  the  shape 
of  wit  who  turns  out  to  be  a  lottery-keeper,  nor  seduced  to  hear  a  mag- 
nificent oration  which  finishes  by  retreating  into  a  peruke,  or  rolling  off 
into  a  blacking  ball  .  .  .  and  as  there  is  perhaps  about  one  person  in  a 
hundred  who  is  pleased  to  see  two  or  three  columns  occupied  with  the 
mutabilities  of  cotton  and  the  vicissitudes  of  leather,  the  proprietors  will 
have  as  little  to  do  with  bulls  and  raw-hides,  as  with  lottery-men  and 
wig-makers." 

The  editorials,  which  occupied  the  foremost  columns  of  the 
paper,  attacked  corruption  and  injustice  of  every  kind  without 
respect  of  persons,  currying  favor  with  neither  party  nor  indi- 
vidual, and  laboring  above  all  for  the  people.  International 
relations  and  continental  conditions  were  kept  track  of,  but 
chief  prominence  was  given  to  domestic  affairs.  The  editor 
warred  against  all  abuses  of  power  in  the  cabinet  and  in  all 
ofSces  under  the  crown.  In  particular  he  attacked  with  merci- 
less persistence  the  Prince  Regent  in  regard  to  his  private  life 
and  his  public  conduct,  and  his  brother  Frederick,  the  Duke 
of  York,  for  his  inefficiency  as  Commander-in-Chief  of  the 
army.2*  His  definition  of  the  English  Army  was  "  a  host  of 
laced  jackets  and  long  pigtails.^^  He  condemned  the  numerous 
subsidies  of  the  crown,  the  royal  pensions  and  salaries  for 
nominal  service.  He  ridiculed  the  divine  right  of  kings  and 
exposed  court  scandal  and  immorality.     The  chief  measures 

-*  On  the  subject  of  military  depravity  The  Examiner  contained  the 
following :  "  The  presiding  genius  of  army  government  has  become  a  perfect 
Falstaff,  a  carcass  of  corruption,  full  of  sottishness  and  selfishness,  prey- 
ing upon  the  hard  labour  of  honest  men,  and  never  to  be  moved  but  by  its 
lust  for  money ;  and  the  time  has  come  when  either  the  vices  of  one  man 
must  be  sacrificed  to  the  military  honour  of  the  country,  or  the  military 
honour  of  the  country  must  be  sacrificed  to  the  vices  of  one  man."  (The 
Examiner,  October  23,  1808.) 

^^  The  Examiner,  April  10,   1808. 


13 

for  which  he  labored  were  CathoHc  ErHancipation ;  reform  of 
Parhamentary  representation;  Hberty  of  the  press;  reduction 
and  equaHzation  of  taxes;  greater  discretion  in  increasing  the 
public  debt;  education  of  the  poor  and  amelioration  of  their 
sufferings ;  abolition  of  child-labor  and  of  the  slave  trade ;  re- 
form of  military  discipline,  of  prison  conditions,  and  of  the 
criminal  and  civil  laws,  particularly  those  governing  debtors. 

It  is  not  a  matter  of  marvel  that  the  paper  made  hosts  of 
enemies  on  every  side.  Charges  of  libel  quickly  followed  its 
onslaughts.  Before  the  paper  was  a  year  old  a  prosecution  was 
begun  in  connection  with  the  Major  Hogan  and  Mrs.  Clarke 
case,-"  but  it  was  dropped  when  an  investigation  was  begun  by 
the  House  of  Commons.  Within  a  year's  time  after  this  prose- 
cution a  second  indictment  was  brought  because  of  the  sen- 
tence :  "  Of  all  monarchs  since  the  Revolution  the  successor  of 
George  the  Third  will  have  the  finest  opportunity  of  becoming 
nobly  popular."-^  The  Morning  Chronicle  copied  it,  and  was 
indicted,  but  both  cases  were  dismissed.  The  third  offense  was 
the  quotation  of  an  article  by  John  Scott  on  the  cruelty  of 
military  flogging-®  but,  like  the  others,  this  prosecution  came 
to  nothing. 

The  fourth  and  most  disastrous  misdemeanor  was  libel  of 
the  Prince  Regent,  a  man  of  shocking  morals  and  of  unstable 
character.  Before  his  appointment  as  Regent  he  had  leaned  to 
the  Whig  party  and  advocated  Catholic  Emancipation,  but  at  his 
accession  to  power  he  retained  the  Tory  ministry.  The  Whigs 
were  greatly  angered  in  consequence,  and  The  Examiner  took 

-'Maj.  Hogan,  an  Irishman  in  the  English  Army,  unable  to  gain  pro- 
motion by  the  customary  method  of  purchase,  after  a  personal  appeal  to  the 
Duke  of  York,  commander-in-chief  of  the  army,  gave  an  account  of  his 
grievences  in  a  pamphlet  entitled,  Appeal  to  the  Public  and  a  Farewell  Ad- 
dress to  the  Army.  Before  it  appeared  Mrs.  Clarke,  the  mistress  of  the 
Duke  of  York,  sent  Maj.  Hogan  £500  to  suppress  it.  He  returned  ^he  money 
and  made  public  the  offer.  The  subsequent  investigation  showed  that  Mrs. 
Clarke  was  in  the  habit  of  securing  through  her  influence  with  the  com- 
mander-in-chief promotion  for  those  who  would  pay  her  for  it.  After 
these  disclosures,  the  Duke  resigned.  The  Examiner  sturdily  supported 
Maj.  Hogan  as  one  who  refused  to  owe  promotion  "  to  low  intrigue  or 
petticoat  influence."  It  likened  Mrs.  Clarke  to  Mme.  Du  Barry  and  called 
the  Duke  her  tool. 

^' The  Examiner,  October  8,  1809.        ""Ibid..  March  31,  1811. 


14 

it  upon  itself  to  voice  their  indignation.-^  At  a  dinner  given  at 
the  Freemason's  Tavern  on  St.  Patrick's  day,  March  22,  1812, 
Lord  Moira,  an  old  friend  of  the  Prince's,  omitted  mentioning 
him  in  his  speech.  Later,  when  a  toast  was  proposed  to  the 
Prince,  it  was  greeted  with  hisses.  Mr.  Sheridan,  because  of 
Lord  Moira's  omission,  spoke  later  in  the  evening  in  defense 
of  the  Regent,  but  he,  too,  was  received  with  hisses.  The 
Morning  Chronicle  reported  the  dinner;  the  Morning  Post  re- 
plied with  fulsome  praise  of  the  Prince;  The  Examiner  with 
its  usual  alacrity  joined  in  the  fray  and  took  sides  with  the 
Chronicle,  dissecting,  phrase  by  phrase,  the  adulation  heaped 
upon  the  Prince  by  the  Post.  The  following  is  the  bitterest 
part  of  the  polemic  against  him : 

"  What  person,  unacquainted  with  the  true  state  of  the  case,  would  im- 
agine, in  reading  these  astounding  eulogies,  that  this  '  Glory  of  the  people ' 
was  the  subject  of  millions  of  shrugs  and  reproaches! — that  this  'Pro- 
tector of  the  arts'  had  named  a  wretched  foreigner  his  historical  painter, 
in  disparagement  or  in  ignorance  of  the  merits  of  his  own  countrymen  ! — 
that  this  '  Maecenas  of  the  age '  patronized  not  a  single  deserving  writer ! — 
that  this  '  Breather  of  eloquence '  could  not  say  a  few  decent  extempore 
words,  if  we  are  to  judge,  at  least,  from  what  he  said  to  his  regiment  on 
its  embarkation  for  Portugal ! — that  this  '  Conqueror  of  hearts  '  was  the 
disappointer  of  hopes ! — that  this  '  Exciter  of  desire '  [bravo !  Messieurs 
of  the  Post!] — this  'Adonis  in  loveliness',  was  a  corpulent  man  of  fifty! — 
in  short,  this  delightful,  blissful,  wise,  pleasurable,  honourable,  virtuous, 
true  and  immortal  prince,  was  a  violator  of  his  word,  a  libertine  over  head 
and  ears  in  disgrace,  a  dispiser  of  domestic  ties,  the  companion  of  gamblers 
and  demireps,  a  man  who  has  just  closed  half  a  century  without  one  single 
claim  on  the  gratitude  of  his  country,  or  the  respect  of  posterity !  "'" 

^  "  Surely  it  is  too  gross  to  suppose  that  the  Prince  of  Wales,  the  friend 
of  Fox,  can  have  been  affecting  habits  of  thinking,  and  indulging  habits 
of  intimacy,  which  he  is  to  give  up  at  a  moment's  notice  for  nobody  knows 
what: — surely  it  cannot  be,  that  the  Prince  Regent,  the  Whig  Prince,  the 
friend  of  Ireland — the  friend  of  Fox, — the  liberal,  the  tolerant,  experienced 
large-minded  Heir  Apparent,  can  retain  in  power  the  very  men,  against 
whose  opinions  he  has  repeatedly  declared  himself,  and  whose  retention  in 
power  hitherto  he  has  explicitly  stated  to  be  owing  solely  to  a  feeling 
of  delicacy  with  respect  to  his  father."  (The  Examiner,  February  28, 
1812.) 

^The  Examiner,  March  12,  1812,  The  contention  beween  Canon  Ainger 
and  Mr.  Gosse  in  respect  to  Charles  Lamb's  supposed  part  in  this  libel 
is  set  forth  in  The  Athenaeum  of  March  23,  1889.  Mr,  Gosse's  evidence 
came  through  Robert  Browning  from  John  Forster,  who  first  told  Brown- 
ing as  early  as  1837  that  Lamb  was  concerned  in  it. 


15 

It  was  said  that  the  chief  offense  was  given  by  the  statement 
that  "  this  '  Adonis  in  lovehness '  was  a  corpulent  man  of 
fifty."  The  article,  although  true,  was  of  doubtful  expediency 
and  offensively  violent  and  personal.  Further,  the  unremitting 
attacks  of  The  Examiner  had  been  neither  dignified  nor  charit- 
able in  their  searchlight  penetration  into  the  Prince's  private 
affairs. ^^  An  indictment  for  libel  naturally  followed  at  once. 
Lord  Brougham's  "masterly  defense"^-  failed  to  avert  the  de- 
termined efforts  of  the  prosecution  to  make  an  example  of  the 
editor  and  the  publisher  of  The  Examiner.  They  were  sen- 
tenced to  the  imprisonment  and  fine  already  mentioned.  They 
refused  all  overtures  for  alleviation  of  the  sentence: — over- 
tures from  the  government;  from  the  Whigs  who,  in  the  per- 
son of  Perry  of  the  Morning  Chronicle,  proposed  to  obtain  a 
compromise  from  the  prosecution  by  threatening  the  Regent 
with  the  publication  of  state  secrets  from  friends ;  and  even 
from  a  juror  who  offered  to  pay  the  fine.  Leigh  Hunt  wrote: 
"  I  am  an  Englishman  setting  an  example  to  my  children  and 
my  country;  and  it  would  be  hard,  under  all  these  circum- 
stances, if  I  could  not  suffer  my  extremity  rather  than  disgrace 
myself  by  effeminate  lamentation  or  worse  compromise,"^^ 
The  two  Hunts  thought  that  the  serving  of  the  sentence  would 
be  beneficial  to  the  liberal  cause,  particularly  in  increasing  the 
freedom  of  the  press. 

The  general  method  of  The  Examiner  was  vigorous  attack. 
There  was  no  circumlocution,  no  mincing  of  language,  but 
aggressive  candour,  and,  when  it  was  considered  necessary, 
wholesale  censure  and  vituperation.  A  typical  illustration  is 
given  in  this  passage,  describing  a  dinner  of  the  Common 
Council : 

"  It  is  the  fashion  just  now  to  call  Bonaparte  Antichrist,  the  Beast 
with  Seven  Heads  and  Ten  Horns,  .  .  .  but  if  you  wish  to  see  those  who 
have  the  '  real  mark  of  the   beast '  upon  them,  go  to   a   City   dinner,   and 

^  Mr.  Monkhouse  says  that  it  was  then  politically  unjustifiable  {Life  of 
Leigh  Hunt,  p.  88.) 

'^  Brougham  wrote  of  his  intended  defense,  "  it  will  be  a  thousand  times 
more  unpleasant  than  the  libel."  For  a  narration  of  his  friendship  for 
Hunt,  see  Temple  Bar,  June,   1876. 

^  The  Examiner,  February  7,  1813. 


16 

after  battles  for  trout  and  the  buffetings  for  turtle,  after  the  rattling  of 
wine  glasses  and  plethoric  throats,  after  the  swillings  and  the  gormandizings, 
and  the  maudlin  hobs-and-nobs,  and  the  disquisitions  on  smothered  rabbits, 
and  the  bloated  hectics,  and  the  blinking  eyes  and  slurred  voices,  and  the 
hiccups,  the  rantings,  and  the  roars,  hear  an  unwieldy  Loan-jobber  des- 
canting on  our  Glorious  King  and  Unshaken  Constitution.  The  stranger, 
that  after  this  sight,  goes  to  see  the  beasts  in  the  Tower,  is  an  enemy  to 
all  true  climax."  ^ 

In  actual  results  The  Examiner  accomplished  a  great  deal 
in  the  counter  movement  for  reform.  While  Hunt  had  no 
original  or  constructive  political  theory,  little  power  of  philo- 
sophical or  logical  thought,  and  no  special  equipment  besides 
wide  general  knowledge,  he  had  great  sincerity  and  courage 
and  a  defiant  attitude  toward  corruption  of  all  kinds.^^  He 
was  himself  absolutely  incorruptible.  If  he  preferred  any 
form  of  government  above  another — for  he  was  more  inter- 
ested in  the  pure  administration  of  an  established  government 
than  in  the  form  itself — his  preference  was  for  a  liberal 
monarchy.  Notwithstanding  this  moderate  attitude.  The 
Examiner  was  accused  of  radical,  even  revolutionary  opinions. 
It  was  charged  with  being  an  enemy  of  the  constitution,  a 
traitor  to  the  king,  a  foe  to  the  established  church.^^  Hunt's 
positive  achievement  in  political  journalism  was  two- fold:  he 
obtained  additional  freedom  for  the  press  and  he  elevated  jour- 
nalistic style  to  a  literary  level.  Monkhouse  says  that  Hunt 
"  established  for  the  first  time  a  paper  which  fought,  and  fought 
effectively,  with  prejudice  and  privilege,  with  superstition  and 
tyranny,  which  was  a  bearer  of  light  to  all  men  of  Liberal  prin- 
ciples in  that  country,  and  set  the  example  of  the  independent 
thought  and  fearless  expression  of  opinion,  which  has  since 
become  the  very  light  and  power  of  the  press. "^'^  Of  the  Hunt 
brothers  Coventry  Patmore  writes  :  "  I  verily  believe  that,  with- 
out the  manly  firmness,  the  immaculate  political  honesty,  and 
the  vigorous  good  sense  of  the  one,  and  the  exquisite  genius 
and  varied  accomplishments,  guided  by  the  all-pervading  and 
all-embracing  humanity  of  the  other,  we  should  at  this  moment 

**  The  Examiner,  December  lo,  1809. 

^Correspondence,  I,  p.  179.  ^^  The  Reflector  I,  p.  5. 

"  Monkhouse,  Life  of  Leigh  Hunt,  p.  79. 


17 

have  been  without  many  of  those  writers  and  thinkers  on 
whose  unceasing  efforts  the  slow  but  sure  march  of  our  poHt- 
ical,  and  with  it,  our  social  regeneration  as  a  people  mainly 
depends. "^^ 

Hunt  assisted  in  bringing  about  reforms  in  the  interest  of 
the  people  by  calling  attention  to  abuses  that  demanded  inves- 
tigation, and  by  advocating  correction.  His  ideas  on  national 
finance  and  practical  administration  are  wonderful  when  con- 
trasted with  his  inefficiency  in  his  own  affairs.  He  lacked 
largeness  of  perspective  and  masculine  grasp.  His  work  is  all 
the  more  remarkable  when  his  temperament  and  tastes  are  con- 
sidered ;  for  his  was  a  nature,  as  Professor  Dowden  has  put  it, 
"  framed  less  for  the  rough  and  tumble  of  English  radical  poli- 
tics than  for  '  dance  and  Provenqal  Song  and  sunburnt  mirth.'  " 
As  a  factor  in  the  reform  movement  begun  in  the  first  decade 
of  the  nineteenth  century  Leigh  Hunt  has  not  yet  come  into  his 
own.^®  His  was  no  cosmic  theory,  nor  search  after  the  origin 
of  evil,  nor  magnificent  rebellion  like  Shelley's  and  Byron's; 
but  in  his  own  smaller  way  he  played  as  courageous  and  as 
effective  a  part  in  the  cause  of  liberty  as  those  greater  spirits.*" 

In  1810,  the  two  brothers  had  established  a  quarterly,  The 
Reflector,  of  much  the  same  nature  and  creed  as  The  Examiner. 
It  was   unsuccessful  and   was   discontinued   after  the   fourth 

'' Patmore,  My  Friends  and  Acquaintance,  III,  p.  loi. 

''The  Edinburgh  Review  of  May,  1823,  in  an  article  entitled  The  Peri- 
odical Press  ranked  Hunt  next  to  Cobbett  in  talent  and  The  Examiner 
as  the  ablest  and  most  respectable  of  weekly  publications,  when  allowance 
had  been  made  for  the  occasional  twaddle  and  flippancy,  the  mawkishness 
about  firesides  and  Bonaparte,  and  the  sickly  sonnet-writing. 

*"  Mazzini  wrote  Hunt :  "  Your  name  is  known  to  many  of  my  Country- 
men ;  it  would  no  doubt  impart  an  additional  value  to  the  thoughts  em- 
bodied in  the  League.  [International  League.]  It  is  the  name  not  only 
of  a  patriot,  but  of  a  high  literary  man  and  a  poet.  It  would  show  at  once 
that  natural  questions  are  questions  not  of  merely  political  tendencies,  but 
of  feeling,  eternal  trust,  and  Godlike  poetry.  It  would  show  that  poets 
understand  their  active  mission  down  here,  and  that  they  are  also  prophets 
and  apostles  of  things  to  come.  I  was  told  only  to-day  that  you  had  been 
asked  to  be  a  member  of  the  League's  Council,  and  feel  a  want  to  ex- 
press the  joy  I  too  would  feel  at  your  assent."  (Cornhill  Magazine,  LXV, 
p.  480  ff.) 


18 

number.  It  differed  from  its  predecessor  in  combining  litera- 
ture with  politics.  Hunt's  reason  for  this  innovation  displays 
a  rare  power  to  judge  of  contemporary  movements:  "  Politics, 
in  times  like  these,  should  naturally  take  the  lead  in  periodical 
discussion,  because  they  have  an  importance  almost  unexam- 
pled in  history,  and  because  they  are  now,  in  their  turn,  exhib- 
iting their  reaction  upon  literature,  as  literature  in  the  preced- 
ing age  exhibited  its  action  upon  them."^^ 

Although  Hunt  continued  to  be  editor  of  The  Examiner  until 
he  went  to  Italy  in  1822,  his  aggressive  political  activity  seemed 
to  die  out  of  him  after  his  release  from  prison.  He  was  never 
so  prominently  again  before  the  public;  in  1828,  he  ceased 
altogether  to  write  on  political  questions.  He  retired  more  and 
more  into  the  seclusion  of  his  books,  and  from  about  1849, 
denied  himself  to  all  but  a  small  circle  of  congenial  spirits. 

Hunt,  like  the  others  of  his  group,  was  deeply  influenced  by 
the  liberal  movement  in  religion  as  well  as  in  politics.  He  had 
seen  his  father's  progress  from  the  Anglican  Church  through 
the  Unitarian*-  to  the  Universalist.  At  the  age  of  twelve  he 
repudiated  the  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment  and  declared 
himself  a  believer  in  the  "  exclusive  goodness  of  futurity."  In 
his  early  manhood  he  decried  the  superstition  of  Catholicism, 
the  intolerance  of  Calvinism,  and  the  emotionality  of  Method- 
ism. Yet  he  acknowledged  a  Great  First  Cause  and  a  Divine 
Paternity.  He  refused,  like  Shelley,  to  recognize  the  existence 
of  evil,  and  thought  everything  finally  good  and  beautiful  in 
nature.*^     He  believed  that  universal  happiness  would  come 

"  The  Reflector,  I,  p.  5. 

^  Hunt  accepted  the  Monthly  Repository  in  1837  as  a  gift  from  W.  J. 
Fox  in  order  to  free  it  from  Unitarian  influence.  Carlyle,  Landor,  Brown- 
ing and  Miss  Martineau  were  contributors. 

*^  (i)  "  Besides,  it  is  my  firm  belief — as  firm  as  the  absence  of  positive, 
tangible  proof  can  let  it  be  (and  if  we  had  that,  we  should  all  kill  ourselves, 
like  Plato's  scholars,  and  go  and  enjoy  heaven  at  once),  that  whatsoever 
of  just  and  affectionate  the  mind  of  man  is  made  by  nature  to  desire,  is 
made  by  her  to  be  realized,  and  that  this  is  the  special  good,  beauty  and 
glory  of  that  illimitable  thing  called  space — in  her  there  is  room  for  every- 
thing."    Correspondence,  II,  p.  57. 

(2)  And  Faith,  some  day,  will  all  in  love  be  shown,  ("  Abraham  and 
the  Fire-Worshipper,"   {Poetical  Works  of  Leigh  Hunt,  1857,  p.  135.) 


19 

about  through  individual  excellence,  through  performance  of 
duty  and  avoidance  of  excess.  Those  who  disagreed  with  him 
in  this  respect  he  considered  blasphemers  of  nature.  As  Lord 
Houghton  in  his  address  in  the  cemetery  of  Kensal  Green  on 
the  unveiling  of  a  bust  of  Hunt  remarked,  he  had  an  "  absolute 
superstition  for  good."  Similar  testimony  was  borne  by  R.  H. 
Home  when  he  said  that  Chaucer's  "  'Ah,  benedicite '  was  fall- 
ing forever  from  his  lips."**  His  religion  was  one  of  charity 
and  cheerfulness,  of  love  and  truth,  which  is  but  to  affirm  that 
the  humanitarian  moral  of  Abou  Ben  Adhem  was  realized  in 
his  own  life.*^  On  the  death  of  Shelley's  child  William,  Hunt 
wrote  to  the  bereaved  father :  "  I  do  not  know  that  a  soul  is 
born  with  us ;  but  we  seem,  to  me,  to  attain  to  a  soul,  some 
later,  some  earlier;  and  when  we  have  got  that,  there  is  a  look 
in  our  eye,  a  sympathy  in  our  cheerfulness,  and  a  yearning  and 
grave  beauty  in  our  thought  fulness  that  seems  to  say,  '  Our 
mortal  dress  may  fall  off  when  it  will ;  our  trunk  and  our  leaves 
may  go ;  we  have  shot  up  our  blossom  into  an  immortal  air."*'' 

Hunt,  like  Byron  and  Shelley,  had  curious  ideas  about  the 
relation  of  the  sexes,  ideas  which  Hazlitt  said,  were  "  always 
coming  out  like  a  rash."*"  This  "  crotchet "  was  taken  over 
likewise  from  Godwin,  who  thought  it  checked  the  progress  of 
the  mind  for  one  individual  to  be  obliged  to  live  for  a  long 
period  in  conformity  to  the  desires  of  another  and  therefore 
disapproved  of  the  marriage  relation.  But,  like  Godwin  and 
Shelley,  Hunt  bowed  to  the  conventions.  His  life  was  a  sin- 
gularly pure  one. 

The  influence  of  Hunt's  poetry  upon  Keats  and  Shelley,  in 
its  general  romantic  tendencies,  particularly  in  respect  to  dic- 
tion and  metre,  deserves  equal  consideration  with  the  influence 
of  his  politics  upon  Shelley  and  Byron.     Juvenilia,  a  volume  of 

**A  New  Spirit  of  the  Age,  II,  p.  183. 

^°  Hunt  wrote  two  religious  books,  Cliristianism  and  Religion  of  the 
Heart.  The  second,  which  is  an  expansion  of  the  first,  contains  a  ritual 
of  daily  and  weekly  service.  For  the  most  part  it  contains  reflections  on 
duty  and  service.. 

*"  Correspondence,  I,  p.  130. 

"  Bryan  Waller  Proctor  (Barry  Cornwall),  An  Autobiographical  Frag- 
ment and  Biographical  Notes,  p.   197. 


20 

Hunt's  poems  collected  by  his  father  and  issued  by  subscrip- 
tion in  1801  contains  original  work  and  translations  which  show 
wide  reading  for  a  boy  of  seventeen  and  some  fluency  in  versi- 
fication. Otherwise  the  writer's  own  opinion  in  1850  is  cor- 
rect :  "  My  work  was  a  heap  of  imitations,  all  but  absolutely 
worthless.  ...  I  wrote  '  odes '  because  Collins  and  Gray  had 
written  them,  '  pastorals '  because  Pope  had  written  them, 
'  blank  verse '  because  Akenside  and  Thomson  had  written 
blank  verse,  and  a  '  Palace  of  Pleasure '  because  Spenser  had 
written  a  '  Bower  of  Bliss.'  "*^  Hunt's  chief  defect  in  taste, 
that  of  introducing  in  the  midst  of  highly  poetical  conceptions, 
disagreeable  physical  conditions  or  symptoms,  is  as  conspicu- 
ous in  this  volume'*^  as  in  his  more  mature  work. 

The  Feast  of  the  Poets,  1814,^°  is  a  light  satire  in  the  manner 
of  Sir  John  Suckling's  Session  of  the  Poets.  It  spares  few 
poets  since  the  days  of  Milton  and  Dryden,  and  it  includes  in 
its  revilings  most  of  Hunt's  contemporaries.  Gifford,  the 
editor  of  the  Quarterly  Reviezv,  comes  in  for  the  worst  casti- 
gation.  It  is  not  remarkable  that  the  satire  antagonized  people 
on  every  side  in  the  literary  world  as  The  Examiner  had  done 
in  the  political.  Hunt  believed  that  "  its  offences,  both  of  com- 
mission and  of  omission,  gave  rise  to  some  of  the  most  invet- 
erate enmities"  of  his  life.^^  It  is  important  in  the  history  to 
be  discussed  in  a  later  chapter  of  the  literary  feud  which  re- 
sulted in  the  creation  of  the  so-called  Cockney  School.  Later 
revisions  included  some  poets  who  had  been  intentionally 
ignored  at  first  in  both  poems  and  notes,  or  who,  like  Shelley 
and  Keats,  naturally  would  not  have  been  included  in  the  1814 
edition ;  and  it  softened  down  the  harsh  criticism  of  those  who 
were  unfortunate  enough  to  have  been  included,  except  Gifford, 
whom  Hunt  could  never  forgive.  The  irony  is  fresh  and  there 
are  occasional  spicy  flashes  of  wit.  The  narrative  is  clear  and 
the  characterization  vivid.  Byron  pronounced  it  "  the  best 
Session  we  have."^^ 

^Autobiography.  I,  p.    1 19-120. 

*^  A  Morning  Walk  and  Vieiv ;  Sonnet  on  the  Sickness  of  Eliza. 
^  It  had  appeared  previously  in  The  Reflector,  No.  4,  article  10.     In  the 
separate  edition  it  was  expanded  and  126  pages  of  notes  were  added. 
°'  Poetical   Works,   1832,  preface,  p.  48. 
"Byron,  Letters  and  Journals,  III,  p.  28,  February  9,  1814. 


21 

The  Descent  of  Liberty, ^^  1815,  is  a  masque  celebrating  the 
triumph  of  Liberty,  in  the  person  of  the  Alhes,  over  the  En- 
chanter, Napoleon.  There  is  little  plot  or  human  interest ;  the 
natural,  the  supernatural,  and  the  mythical  are  confusedly 
interwoven.  The  pictorial  effect,  however,  is  one  of  great 
richness  and  color,  and  some  of  the  songs  and  passages  have 
fine  lyrical  feeling  and  melody.  It  is  interesting  in  this  connec- 
tion to  note  a  vague  general  resemblance  between  the  Descent 
of  Liberty  and  Shelley's  Queen  Mab  (1812-13)  in  the  worship 
of  Liberty,  in  the  hope  and  promise  of  her  ultimate  triumph, 
and  in  the  wild  imagination  which  Hunt  probably  never  again 
equalled.  It  is  not  likely,  however,  that  Hunt  knew  Shelley's 
poem  at  the  time  he  was  writing  his  own. 

The  Story  of  Rimini,  produced  in  1816  and  dedicated  to 
Lord  Byron,  is  the  most  important  of  Hunt's  works  in  a 
consideration  of  his  relations  with  the  enemies  of  the  Cockney 
SchooP*  and  with  Byron,  Shelley,  and  Keats.  Byron  criticised 
it  severely.  Shelley  thought  it  carried  uncommon  and  irre- 
sistible interest  with  it,  but  he  agreed  with  Byron  in  thinking 
that  the  style  had  fettered  Hunt's  genius.^^  Keats  wrote  a 
sonnet^^  on  Rimini  in  1817,  and  in  his  own  works  shows  unmis- 
takably the  influence  of  Hunt's  poem  in  diction  and  versifi- 
cation. 

The  story  is  founded,  of  course,  on  the  Francesea  episode 
in  the  fifth  canto  of  the  Inferno  of  Dante.    It  was  a  dangerous 

^  The  same  volume  contained  a  preface  on  the  origin  and  history  of 
masques  and  an  Ode  for  the  Spring  of  1814.  Byron  said  of  the  latter  that 
the  "  expressions  were  buckram  except  here  and  there."  The  masque,  he 
thought,  contained  "  not  only  poetry  and  thought  in  the  body,  but  much 
research  and  good  old  reading  in  your  prefatory  matter."  Byron,  Letters 
and  Journals,  III,  p.  200,  June  i,  1815. 
"See  chapter  V,  p.  19. 

"^  Nicoll  and  Wise,  Literary  Anecdotes  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  p.  330. 
^  Who  loves  to  peer  up  at  the  morning  sun. 
With  half-shut  eyes  and  comfortable  cheek, 
Let  him,  with  this  sweet  tale,  full  often  seek 
For  meadows  where  the  little  rivers   run  ; 
Who  loves  to  linger  with  the  brightest  one 
Of  Heaven    (Hesperus)    let  him  lowly  speak 
These  numbers  to  the  night,  and  starlight  meek. 


22 

thing  for  Hunt  to  undertake  an  elaboration  of  the  marvelous 
episode  of  Dante.  Had  he  been  a  man  of  greater  genius  it 
would  have  been  a  risk;  as  it  was,  he  produced  a  diffuse  and 
sentimental  narrative  which  bears  little  resemblance  to  the 
singular  perfection  of  the  original.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Story  of  Rimini  does  possess  indubitable  merits:  directness  of 
narrative,  minute  observation,  sensuous  richness  of  pictorial 
description,  and  occasional  delicate  felicity  of  language. ^'^ 
Byron  wrote  of  the  third  canto  which  he  saw  in  manuscript : 

"  You  have  excelled  yourself — if  not  all  your  contemporaries — in  the 
canto  which  I  have  just  finished.  I  think  it  above  the  former  books ;  but 
that  is  as  it  should  be;  it  rises  with  the  subject,  the  conception  seems  to 
me  perfect,  and  the  execution  perhaps  as  nearly  so  as  verse  will  admit. 
There  is  more  originality  than  I  recollect  to  have  seen  elsewhere  within 
the  same  compass,  and  frequent  and  great  happiness  of  expression."  The 
faults  he  said  were  "  occasional  quaintnesses  and  obscurity,  and  a  kind  of 
harsh  and  yet  colloquial  compounding  of  epithets,  as  if  to  avoid  saying 
common  things  in  a  common  way."^' 

October  30,  1815,  in  reply  to  these  objections  Hunt  sent  forth 
this  defense :  "  we  accomodate  ourselves  to  certain  habitual, 
sophisticated  phrases  of  written  language,  and  thus  take  away 
from  real  feeling  of  any  sort  the  only  language  it  ever  actually 
uses,  which  is  the  spoken  language."  At  the  same  time  he 
made  a  few  alterations  at  Byron's  suggestion.^®  And  again 
the  latter  wrote :  "  You  have  two  excellent  points  in  that  poem 
— 'Originality  and  Italianism."®"  After  the  Story  of  Rimini 
appeared  he  wrote  to  Moore :  "  Leigh  Hunt's  poem  is  a  devilish 
good  one — quaint,  here  and  there,  but  with  the  substratum  of 

Or  moon,  if  that  her  hunting  be  begun. 

He  who  knows  these  delights,  and  too  is  prone 

To  moralize  upon  a  smile  or  tear, 

Will  find  at  once  religion  of  his  own, 

A  bower  for  his  spirit,  and  will  steer 

To  alleys  where  the  fir-tree  drops  its  cone, 

Where  robins  hop,  and  fallen  leaves  are  seer. 

(Complete  Works  of  John  Keats,  ed  by  Forman,  II,  p.  183.) 
"  Lowell  said  of  Hunt :  "  No  man  has  ever  understood  the  delicacies  and 
luxuries  of  the  language  better  than  he." 

^  Byron,  Letters  and  Journals,  III,  p.  226,  October  22,  1815. 

^Ibid.,  Ill,  p.  418. 

"'Ibid.,  Ill,  p.  242,  October  30,   1815. 


23 

originality,  and  with  poetry  about  it  that  will  stand  the  test."^'- 
In  1818  Byron's  opinion  had  changed  somewhat: 

"  When  I  saw  Rimini  in  Ms.,  I  told  him  I  deemed  it  good  poetry  at 
bottom,  disfigured  only  by  a  strange  style.  His  answer  was,  that  his  style 
was  a  system,  or  upon  system,  or  some  other  such  cant ;  and  when  a  man 
talks  of  system,  his  case  is  hopeless ;  so  I  said  no  more  to  him,  and  very 
little  to  anyone  else.  He  believed  his  trash  of  vulgar  phrases  tortured  into 
compound  barbarisms  to  be  old  English*-  .  .  .  Hunt,  who  had  powers  to 
make  the  Story  of  Rimini  as  perfect  as  a  fable  of  Dryden,  has  thought  fit 
to  sacrifice  his  genius  to  some  unintelligible  notion  of  Wordsworth,  which 
I  defy  him  to  explain.^^  ...  A  friend  of  mine  calls  '  Rimini '  Nimini 
Pimini;  and  'Foliage'  Follyage.  Perhaps  he  had  a  tumble  in  'climbing 
trees  in  the  Hesperides ' !  But  Rimini  has  a  great  deal  of  merit.  There 
never  were  so  many  fine  things  spoiled  as  in  '  Rimini.'  "*'* 

Hunt  had  a  distinct  theory  of  language  based  on  a  few 
crude  principles.  As  his  practical  application  of  them  had  its 
effect  upon  Keats,  a  somewhat  full  consideration  of  them  is 
desirable  here.  The  first  and  most  conspicuous  one,  promoted 
by  what  Hunt  called  "  an  idiomatic  spirit  in  verse,"^^  was  a 
preference  for  colloquial  words.''"  He  mistook  for  grace 
and  fluency  of  diction,  a  turn  of  phrase  that  was  without 
poetic  connection  and  often  in  very  poor  taste.  In  dialogue, 
particularly,  the  effect  is  undignified.  This  professed  doctrine 
was  a  fuller  development*'^  of  the  statement  in  the  Advertise- 

^  Ibid.,  Ill,   p.  267,  February  29,  1816. 

'^Ibid.,  IV,  p.  237,  June  i,  1818,     ^  Ibid.,    IV,  pp.  486-487. 

**  Medwin,  Journal  of  the  Conversations  of  Lord  Byron,  p.  187. 

^  In  the  preface  to  the  Story  of  Rimini  (London,  1819,  p.  16),  Hunt  says 
that  a  poet  should  use  an  actual  existing  language,  and  quotes  as  authori- 
ties, Chaucer,  Ariosto,  Pulci,  even  Homer  and  Shakespeare.  He  thought 
simplicity  of  language  of  greater  importance  even  than  free  versification 
in  order  to  avoid  the  cant  of  art :  "  The  proper  language  of  poetry  is  in 
fact  nothing  different  from  that  of  real  life,  and  depends  for  its  dignity 
upon  the  strength  and  sentiment  of  what  it  speaks,  omitting  mere  vulgar- 
isms and  fugitive  phrases  which  are  cant  of  ordinary  discourse." 

**  Byron,  Letters  and  Journals,   III,  p.   418. 

"Mr.  A.  T.  Kent  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  (vol.  36,  p.  227),  points  out 
that  Leigh  Hunt  in  the  preface  to  the  Story  of  Rimini,  avoided  the  mis- 
take of  Wordsworth  in  "  looking  to  an  unlettered  peasantry  for  poetical 
language,"  and  quotes  him  as  saying  that  one  should  "  add  a  musical  modu- 
lation to  what  a  fine  understanding  might  naturally  utter  in  the  midst  of  its 
griefs  and  enjoyments,"  Kent  says  we  have  here  "  two  vital  points  on 
which  Wordsworth,  in  his  capacity  of  critic,  had  failed  to  insist." 


24 

merit  to  the  Lyrical  Ballads  of  1798:  in  Hunt's  opinion, 
Wordsworth  failed  to  consider  duly  meter  in  its  essential  rela- 
tions to  poetry,  and  while  Hunt  himself  desired  a  "  return  to 
nature  and  a  natural  style  "  he  thought  that  Wordsworth  had 
substituted  puerility  for  simplicity  and  affectation  for  nature. 
Hunt's  acknowledged  model  for  the  poem  was  Dryden,^^  but 
Hunt's  colloquial  phrasing,  peculiar  diction,  elision,*"*  and  loose 
expansion  approach  much  more  closely  to  Chamberlayne's 
Pharronida  (1689)  than  to  anything  in  Dryden.*'^^  The  follow- 
ing extract  is  one  of  many  that  might  be  cited  as  suggestive  of 
Hunt's  Story  of  Rimini: 

"  To  his  cold  clammy  lips 
Joining  her  balmy  twins,  she  from  them  sips 
So  much  of  death's  oppressing  dews,  that,  by 
That   touch    revived,    his    soul,   though   winged   to   fly 
Her  ruined  seat,  takes  time  to  breathe 
These  sad  notes  forth :  "  farewell,  my  dear,  beneath 
My  fainting  spirits  sink.'"" 

Occasionally  Hunt's  choice  of  colloquial  words  fitted  the  sub- 
ject, as  in  the  Feast  of  the  Poets,  where  humor  and  satire 
permit  such  expressions  as  "  bards  of  Old  England  had  all 
been  rung  in,"  "  twiddling  a  sunbeam,"  "  bloated  his  wits," 
"  tricksy  tenuity  "  or  such  words  as  "  smack,"  "  pop-in  "  and 
"  sing-song."  His  poetical  epistles  suffer  without  injury  such 
departures  from  dignified  diction,  but  in  other  cases,  of  which 
the  Story  of  Rimini  is  a  notable  example,  a  grave  subject  in 
the  garb  of  everyday  language  is  degraded  into  the  incon- 
gruous and  prosaic.  It  is  in  physical  descriptions  that  this 
undignified  diction  most  strikingly  violates  good  taste.  Ex- 
amples are : 

"  And  both  their  cheeks,  like  peaches  on  a  tree, 
Leaned  with  a  touch  together,  thrillingly," 

"  So  lightsomely  dropped  in,  his  lordly  back. 
His  thigh  so  fitted  for  the  tilt  or  dance." 

'^Autobiography,  11,  p.  24. 

'^  To  be  found  chiefly  in  the  Feast  of  the  Poets. 

*°*  In  1855,  in  Stories  in  Verse,  Hunt  changed  his  acknowledged  allegiance 
from  Dryden  to  Chaucer. 
'"  Canto,  n,  11.  433-440. 


25 

Sometimes  the  prosaic  quality  of  Hunt's  diction  is  due  to  its 
being  pitched  upon  a  merely  "  society  "  level : 

"May  I  come  in?  said  he: — it  made  her  start, — 
That  smiling  voice ; — she  coloured,  pressed  her  heart 
A  moment,  as  for  breath  and  then  with  free 
And  usual  tone  said,  '  O  Yes, — certainly.'  " 

Such  a  treatment  of  the  meeting  of  Paolo  and  Francesca  in 
the  bower  is  wholly  inadequate  to  the  situation  and  the  emo- 
tion of  the  moment.  Additional  illustrations  of  his  colloquial- 
isms from  the  Story  of  Rimini  and  from  other  poems  of  the 
same  period  are :  "  to  bless  his  shabby  eyes,"  "  that  to  the 
stander  near  looks  awfully,"  "banquet  small,  and  cheerful, 
and  considerate,"  "  clipsome  waist,"  "  jauntiness  behind  and 
strength  before"  (description  of  a  horse),  "lend  their  stream- 
ing tails  to  the  fond  air,"  "  sweepy  shape,"  "  cored  in  our  com- 
placencies," "  lumps  of  flowers,"  "  smooth,  down-arching 
thigh,"  "  tapering  with  tremulous  mass  internally." 

Hunt's  second  principle  to  be  considered  is  the  excessive 
use  of  vague  and  passionless  words.  Instances  of  such  words 
to  be  found  very  frequently  in  his  poetry  are :  fond,  amiable, 
fair,  rural,  cordial,  cheerful,  gentle,  calm,  smooth,  serene, 
earnest,  lovely,  balmy,  dainty,  mild,  meek,  tender,  kind,  elegant, 
quiet,  sweet,  fresh,  pleasant,  warm,  social,  and  many  others  of 
like  character. 

A  third  principle  was  the  employment  of  unusual  words; 
examples  are  found  in  the  Story  of  Rimini  in  the  first  edition 
and  in  other  poems  produced  about  this  same  time.  In  the 
Poetical  Works,  1832,  most  of  them  have  been  discarded. 
The  preface  states  that  the  "occasional  quaintnesses  and 
neologisms "  which  "  formerly  disfigured  the  poems  did  not 
arise  from  affectation  but  from  the  sheer  license  of  animal 
spirits  " ;  that  they  are  not  worth  defending  and  that  he  has 
left  only  two  in  the  Story  of  Rimini,  "  swirl "  and  "  cored." 
"  Swaling  "  had  been  the  most  famous  one  in  the  poem  because 
of  the  ridicule  heaped  upon  it  by  the  enemies  of  the  Cockney 
School. 

To  use  ordinary  words  in  an  extraordinary  sense  was  a 
fourth  principle.     The  effect  was  often  extremely  awkward. 


26 

Core  passes  as  a  synonym  for  heart ;  fry  occurs  in  Rimini 
in  a  strange  sense ;  hip  and  tiptoe  are  employed  with  a  special 
Huntian  significance.  Nouns  and  adjectives  are  used  as  verbs 
and  verbs  as  nouns  and  adjectives  with  an  unpoetical  effect: 
cored  (verb)  ;  drag  (noun)  ;  frets  (noun)  ;  feel  (noun)  ;  pat- 
ting (adjective)  ;  spanning  (adjective)  ;  lull'd  (adjective)  ; 
smearings ;  measuring ;  doings."^ 

The  use  of  compounds  is  a  fifth  distinguishing  feature. 
Such  combinations  are  found  as  bathing-air,  house-warm  lips, 
side-long  pillowed  meekness,  fore-thoughted  chess,  pin-drop 
silence,  tear-dipped  feeling. 

The  sixth  and  last  peculiarity  is  the  preference  for  adjec- 
tives in  3;  and  ing,  many  of  them  of  his  own  coinage  ;  for  adverbs 
in  ly;  and  for  unauthorized  or  awkward  comparatives :  examples 
are  plumpy  (cheeks), knify,  perky,  sweepy,  farmy,  bosomy, pil- 
lowy, arrowy,  liny,  leafy,  scattery,  winy,  globy ;  hasting,  silver- 
ing, doling,  blubbing,  firming,  thickening,  quickening,  differ- 
ing, perking;  lightsomely,  refreshfully,  thrillingly,  kneadingly, 
lumpishly,  smilingly,  preparingly,  crushingly ;"-  finelier,  mar- 
tialler,  tastefuller,  apter. 

The  colloquial  vocabulary,  the  familiar  tone,  and  the  expan- 
sion of  thought  into  phrases  and  clauses  where  it  would  have 
gained  by  condensed  expression,  give  to  the  Story  of  Rimini 
a  prosaic  and  eccentric  style.  Yet  Hunt  declared  he  held 
in  horror  eccentricity  and  prosiness.''^ 

In  a  discussion  of  the  influence  of  Leigh  Hunt  upon  the 
versification  of  his  contemporaries  and  successors  it  is  neces- 
sary to  consider  not  only  his  theory  but  also  the  active  part 
played  by  him  as  a  conscious  reviver  of  the  older  heroic  coup- 
let. In  this  reaction  against  the  school  of  Pope,  as  also  in  the 
use  of  blank  verse,  he  showed  great  independence  in  discard- 
ing approved  models.  The  notes  added  to  the  Feast  of  the 
Poets  in  1814,  when  it  was  republished  from  the  Reflector  of 

'^  E.  De  Selincourt  gives  these  three  last  as  examples  of  Hunt's  deriva- 
tion of  the  abstract  noun  from  the  present  participle  (Poems  of  John  Keats, 
p.  577). 

"  De  Selincourt  notes  that  these  adverbs  are  usually  formed  from  pres- 
ent participles.      {Poems  of  John  Keats,  p.  577.) 

"  Byron,  Letters  and  Journals,  III,  p.  418. 


27 

i8i2,  are  important  in  this  connection.  They  show  a  wide 
familiarity  with  modern  poetry.    He  writes : 

"  The  late  Dr.  Darwin,  whose  notion  of  poetical  music,  in  common  with 
that  of  Goldsmith  and  others,  was  of  the  school  of  Pope,  though  his  taste 
was  otherwise  different,  was  perhaps  the  first,  who  by  carrying  it  to  the 
extreme  pitch  of  sameness,  and  ringing  it  affectedly  in  one's  ears,  gave  the 
public  at  large  a  suspicion  that  there  was  something  wrong  in  its  nature. 
But  of  those  who  saw  its  deficiencies,  part  had  the  ambition  without  the 
taste  or  attention  requisite  for  striking  into  a  better  path,  and  became 
eccentric  in  another  extreme ;  while  others,  who  saw  the  folly  of  both,  were 
content  to  keep  the  beaten  track  and  set  a  proper  example  to  neither.  By 
these  appeals,  however,  the  public  ear  has  been  excited  to  expect  something 
better ;  and  perhaps  there  was  never  a  more  favourable  time  than  the 
present  for  an  attempt  to  bring  back  the  real  harmonies  of  the  English 
heroic,  and  to  restore  it  to  half  the  true  principle  of  its  music,  variety. 
I  am  not  here  joining  the  cry  of  those,  who  affect  to  consider  Pope  as  no 
poet  at  all.  He  is,  I  confess,  in  my  judgment,  at  a  good  distance  from 
Dryden,  and  at  an  immeasurable  one  from  such  men  as  Spenser  and  Mil- 
ton ;  but  if  the  author  of  the  Rape  of  the  Lock,  of  Eloisa  to  Abelard,  and  of 
the  Elegy  on  an  Unfortunate  Lady,  is  no  poet,  then  are  fancy  and  feeling 
no  properties  belonging  to  poetry.  I  am  only  considering  his  versification ; 
and  upon  that  point  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  I  regard  him,  not  only 
as  no  master  of  his  art,  but  as  a  very  indifferent  practiser,  and  one  whose 
reputation  will  grow  less  and  less,  in  proportion  as  the  lovers  of  poetry 
become  intimate  with  his  great  predecessors,  and  with  the  principles  of 
musical  beauty  in  general.''* 

The  remarks  on  Pope  close  with  the  hope  that  the  imita- 
tion of  the  best  work  of  Dryden,  Milton  and  Spenser  "  might 
lead  the  poets  of  the  present  age  to  that  proper  mixture  of 
sweetness  and  strength — of  modern  finish  and  ancient  variety 
— from  which  Pope  and  his  rhyming  facilities  have  so  long 
withheld  us.""^  Hunt  closes  with  an  appeal  for  the  return  to 
Italian  models,  and  says   that   Hayley,   in  his    Triumphs   of 

"  "  For  ever  since  Pope  spoiled  the  ears  of  the  town 
With  his  cuckoo-song  verses,  half  up  and  half  down, 
There  has  been  such  a  doling  and  sameness, — by  Jove, 
I'd  as  soon  have  gone  down  to  see  Kemble  in  love." 

(Feast  of  the  Poets.) 
Hunt    calls    Pope's    translation    of    the    moonlight    picture    from    Homer 
"  a  gorgeous  misrepresentation "    (Ibid.,  p.    35)    and  the  whole  translation 
"  that  elegant  mistake  of  his  in  two  volumes  octavo."     (Foliage,  p.  32.) 

^^  Feast  of  the  Poets,  p.  38.  The  same  opinions  are  expressed  in  The 
Examiner  of  June  i,  1817  ;  in  the  preface  to  Foliage,  1818. 


28 

Temper  was  "  the  quickest  of  our  late  writers  to  point  out  the 
great  superiority  of  the  ItaHan  school  over  the  French."  He 
protests  against  the  wide  influence  of  Boileau."^^ 

The  Introduction  to  the  Poetical  Works  of  1832  contains  a 
concise  and  technical  statement  of  Hunt's  theory  of  the  heroic 
couplet.  He  argues  that  the  triplet  tends  to  condensation, 
three  lines  instead  of  four ;  that  it  carries  onward  the  fervor 
of  the  poet's  feeling,  delivering  him  from  the  ordinary  laws  of 
his  verse,  and  that  it  expresses  continuity.  Of  the  bracket  he 
says :  "  I  confess  I  like  the  very  bracket  that  marks  out  the 
triplet  to  the  reader's  eye,  and  prepares  him  for  the  music  of 
it.  It  has  a  look  like  the  bridge  of  a  lute."'^  The  use  of  the 
Alexandrine  in  the  heroic  couplet,  he  avers,  gives  variety  and 
energy.  Double  rhymes  are  defended  on  historical  grounds. 
For  himself  he  claims  credit  as  a  restorer,  not  an  innovator, 
and  prophesies  that  the  perfection  of  the  heroic  couplet  is  "  to 
come  about  by  a  blending  between  the  inharmonious  freedom 
of  our  old  poets  in  general  .  .  .  and  the  regularity  of  Dryden 
himself.  ...  If  anyone  could  unite  the  vigor  of  Dryden  with 
the  ready  and  easy  variety  of  pause  in  the  works  of  the  late 
Mr.  Crabbe,  and  the  lovely  poetic  consciousness  in  the  Lamia 
of  Keats  ...  he  would  be  a  perfect  master  of  the  rhyming 
couplet."  A  study  of  the  heroic  couplet  from  Dryden  to 
Shelley  based  on  two  hundred  lines  from  each  poet  has  yielded 
the  results  indicated  in  the  table  on  the  following  page. 

Professor  Saintsbury  says :  "  There  is  no  doubt  that  his 
[Hunt's]  versification  in  Rimini  (which  may  be  described  as 
Chaucerian  in  basis  with  a  strong  admixture  of  Dryden, 
further  crossed  and  dashed  slightly  with  the  peculiar  music  of 
the  followers  of  Spenser,  especially  Browne  and  Wither)  had 
a  very  strong  influence  both  on  Keats  and  on  Shelley,  and  that 
it  drew  from  them  music  much  better  than  itself.  This  fluent, 
musical,  many-colored-verse  was  a  capital  medium  for  tale 
telHng."^^  Professor  Herford  marks  it  as  the  "  starting  point 
of  that  free  or  Chaucerian  treatment  of  the  heroic  couplet  and 

'"'Ibid.,  p.  56.  "P.  27,. 

'*  Saintsbury,  Essays  in  English  Literature,  1780-1860,  p.  220. 


29 


|1 

T3.S 

^6 

tl 

3 

26 
2 
2 

^ 

si 

s 

00 

!£  s" 

=  8 

Shelley, 
Julian  &"  Maddalo,  1819. 

Run-on  Couplets. 

Run-on  Lines 

Triplets 

4 
i6 

3 
3 

6i 

o 
o 

I 

12 
O 

I 

23 

41 
0 
0 

47 

48 

0 

0 

54 

44 

0 

3 

20 

35 

5 

12 

45 

52 
4 

Alexandrines 

0 

of  the  colloquial  style,  eschewing  epigram  and  full  of  familiar 
turns,  which  Shelley  in  Julian  and  Maddalo,  and  Keats  in 
Lamia,  made  classical,"*^  Mr.  R.  B.  Johnson  calls  it  "  a 
protest  against  the  polished  couplet  of  Pope — a  protest  already 
expressed  to  some  extent  in  the  Lyrical  Ballads,  but  through 
Hunt's  influence,  guiding  the  pens  of  Keats,  Shelley  and  some 
of  his  noblest  successors.^-  Mr.  A.  J.  Kent  says  that  "  No 
one-sided  sentiment  of  reaction  against  our  so-called  Augustan 
literature  disqualified  Leigh  Hunt  from  becoming,  as  he  after- 
wards became,  the  greatest  master  since  the  days  of  Dryden 
of  the  heroic  couplet. "^^  Leigh  Hunt's  greatest  mistake  in  the 
handling  of  the  couplet  has  been  clearly  pointed  out  by  Mr. 
Colvin,  who  says  that  he  "  blended  the  grave  and  the  colloquial 
cadences  of  Dryden,  without  his  characteristic  nerve  and 
energy  in  either."^*     The  late  Dr.  Garnett  said  that  the  ease 

"Hunt,  Story  of  Rimini,  London,  1818,  p.  11,  200  lines  beginning  with 
top  of  page.  In  the  1742  lines  of  the  poem,  there  are  47  run-on  couplets 
and  260  run-on  lines.  There  are  7  Alexandrines  and  21  triplets.  In  the 
edition  of  1832  the  number  of  triplets  has  been  increased  to  26.  There  are 
46  double  rhymes.  In  a  study  of  the  cresura  based  on  the  first  200  lines 
there  are  70  medial,  17  double  caesuras.  The  remaining  113  lines  have 
irregular  or  double  csesura. 

"*  Keats,  Lamia,  Bk.  I,  11.  1-200.  In  the  708  lines  of  Lamia,  there  are 
98  run-on  couplets,  144  run-on  lines,  39  Alexandrines  and  11  triplets.  The 
caesura  is  handled  with  greater  freedom  than  in  the  Story  of  Rimini. 

"■  C.  H.  Herford,  Age  of  Wordsworth,  p.  83. 

"^  R.  B.  Johnson,  Leigh  Hunt,  p.  94. 

^  Leigh  Hunt  as  a  Poet,  Fortnightly  Review,  XXXVI:  226. 

"  Sidney  Colvin,  Keats,  p.  30. 


30 

and  variety  of  Dryden  was  restored  by  Hunt  to  English  litera- 
ture.^^ Monkhouse  pointed  out  that  Keats  and  Shelley,  more 
than  Hunt,  reaped  the  rewards  of  his  revivification  of  the 
heroic  couplet.  The  diffuseness  of  the  diction  of  the  Story  of 
Rimini  results  in  a  movement  weaker  than  Dryden's  and  less 
buoyant  than  Chaucer's.  Yet  the  verse  is  distinguished  by  a 
fluency  and  grace  and  melody  that  at  times  are  very  pleasing. 
It  had  a  notable  influence  on  English  verse — 'an  influence  begun 
by  others  but  strongly  reinforced  by  Hunt.  Further  treatment 
of  the  influence  of  Hunt's  diction  and  versifl.cation  upon  Keats 
and  Shelley  is  reserved  for  chapters  H  and  HI  of  the  present 
study. 

Hunt's  next  poetical  work  after  Rimini  was  Foliage,  pub- 
lished in  1818.  It  is  a  collection  of  original  poems  under  the  title 
Greenivoods,  and  of  translations  under  the  title  Evergreens.^^ 
In  the  preface  Hunt  announces  the  main  features  to  be  a  love 
of  sociability,  of  the  country,  and  of  the  "  fine  imagination  of 
the  Greeks."^''  The  first  predilection  runs  the  gamut  from 
"  sociability  "  to  "  domestic  interest "  and  is  the  most  funda- 
mental characteristic  of  the  author  and  of  his  writing.  In  the 
preface  to  One  Hundred  Romances  of  Real  Life  he  declares 
sociability  to  be  "  the  greatest  of  all  interests."  It  rarely  failed 
to  crop  out  when  he  was  writing  even  on  the  gravest  and  most 
impersonal  of  subjects.  In  his  intercourse  with  strangers,  this 
same  "  sociability,"  added  to  a  natural  kindliness  and  sympathy, 
caused  a  familiarity  of  bearing  that  was  often  misunderstood. 
The  Nymphs,  the  longest  poem  of  the  volume,  is  founded  on 
Greek  mythology  and  is  interesting  in  connection  with  Keats's 
poems  on  classical  subjects.  Shelley  said  that  the  Nymphs 
was  "  truly  poetical,  in  the  intense  and  emphatic  sense  of  the 
word.  If  600  miles  were  not  between  us,  I  should  say  what 
pity  that  glih  was  not  omitted,  and  that  the  poem  is  not  so  fault- 
less as  it  is  beautiful."^^  In  general  Shelley  overestimated 
Hunt's  poetry,  though  he  saw  some  of  its  affectations.  Shorter 
pieces  were  epistles  to  Byron,  Moore,  Hazlitt  and  Lamb — a 
kind  of  verse  in  which  Hunt  excelled,  for  his  attitude  and  style 

^^  Garnett,  Age  of  Dryden,  p.  32. 

**"  From  Homer,  Theocritus,  Bion,  Moschus,  Anacreon,  and  Catullus. 

*^  p.  13.  **  Hunt,  Correspondence,  I,  p.   115. 


31 

were  peculiarly  adapted  to  the  familiar  tone  permissible  in 
such  writing-.  Among  Hunt's  best  poems  may  be  counted  the 
sonnets  to  Shelley,  Keats,  Haydon,  Raphael,  and  Kosciusko; 
those  entitled  the  Grasshopper  and  the  Cricket,  To  the  Nile, 
On  a  Lock  of  Milton's  Hair,  and  the  series  on  Hampstead. 
The  suburban  charms  of  Hampstead  were  very  dear  to  Hunt 
and  he  never  tired  of  celebrating  them  in  poetry  and  in  prose. 
No  amount  of  derision  from  the  Quarterly  or  Blackzvood's 
stopped  him.  The  general  characteristics  of  Foliage  are  much 
the  same  as  those  of  the  Story  of  Rimini.  There  are  poor  lines 
and  good  ones,  never  sustained  power,  and  no  poetry  of  a  very 
high  order.  The  subjects  themselves  are  often  unpoetical. 
Hunt  obtrudes  himself  too  frequently  in  a  breezy,  offhand 
manner.     Byron's  opinion  of  the  book  was  scathing: 

"  Of  all  the  ineffable  Centaurs  that  were  ever  begotten  by  self-love  upon  a 
Nightmare,  I  think  '  this  monstrous  Sagittary '  the  most  prodigious.  He 
(Leigh  H.)  is  an  honest  charlatan,  who  has  persuaded  himself  into  a 
belief  of  his  own  impostures,  and  talks  Punch  in  pure  simplicity  of  heart, 
taking  himself  (as  poor  Fitzgerald  said  of  /u';«self  in  the  Morning  Post)  for 
Vates  in  both  senses  and  nonsenses  of  the  word.  Did  you  [Moore]  look 
at  the  translations  of  his  own  which  he  prefers  to  Pope  and  Cowper,  and 
says  so  ? — Did  you  read  his  skimble-skamble  about  Wordsworth  being  at 
the  head  of  his  own  profession,  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  followed  it  ?  I 
thought  that  poetry  was  an  art,  or  an  attribute,  and  not  a  profession; 
but  be  it  one,  is  that  ...  at  the  head  of  your  profession  in  your  eyes  ?  "^^ 

Other  poems  belonging  to  this  period  are  Hero  and  Leander 
and  Bacchus  and  Ariadne  in  1819,  and  a  translation  of  Tasso's 
Aminta  in  1820.  The  first  two  show  Hunt's  faculty  for 
poetical  narrative  and  description,  and,  in  common  with  Keats, 
a  partiality  for  classical  subjects.  The  three  are  in  no  way 
radically  different  from  the  poems  already  considered. 

The  Literary  Pocket  Book  which  Hunt  edited  in  1820,  1821 
and  1822,  the  Nezv  Monthly  Magazine  to  which  he  began  con- 
tributing in  1821,  and  the  Literary  Examiner,  which  he  estab- 
lished in  1823,  complete  the  enumeration  of  his  writings  during 
the  period  of  his  association  with  Byron,  Shelley  and  Keats. 
Beyond  the  contributions  of  Shelley  and  Keats  to  the  first  and 
the  reviews  of  Byron's  poems  in  the  third,  they  are  unim- 
portant here. 

*'  Byron,  Letters  end  Journals,  IV,  p.  238. 


CHAPTER  II 

Keats's  meeting  with  Hunt — Growth  of  their  friendship — Haydon's  inter- 
vention— Keats's  residence  with  Hunt — His  departure  for  Italy — Hunt's 
Criticism  of  Keats's  poetry — His  influence  on  the  Poems  of  1817. 

It  was  about  the  year  181 5  that  Keats  showed  to  his  former 
school  friend,  Charles  Cowden  Clarke,  the  following  sonnet, 
the  first  indication  the  latter  had  that  Keats  had  written  poetry : 

"  What  though,  for  showing  truth  to  flatter'd  state, 
Kind  Hunt  was  shut  in  prison,  yet  has  he, 
In  his  immortal  spirit  been  as  free 
As  the  sky-searching  lark,  and  as  elate. 
Minion  of  grandeur !  think  you  he  did  wait  ? 
Think  you  he  nought  but  prison  walls  did  see, 
Till,  so  unwilling  thou  unturn'dst  the  key? 
Ah,   no !   far  happier,  nobler  was  his  fate ! 
In   Spenser's  halls  he  stray'd,  and  bowers  fair. 
Culling  enchanted  flowers ;  and  he  flew 
With  daring  Milton  through  the  fields  of  air: 
To  regions  of  his  own  his  genius  true 
Took   happy   flights.     Who   shall   his   fame   impair 
When  thou  art  dead,  and  all  thy  wretched  crew  ?  " 

This  admiration,  expressed  before  Keats  had  met  Hunt,  was 
due  to  the  influence  of  the  Clarke  family  and  to  Keats's  ac- 
quaintance with  The  Examiner,  which  he  saw  regularly  during 
his  school  days  at  Enfield  and  which  he  continued  to  borrow 
from  Clarke  during  his  medical  apprenticeship.  Clarke  later 
showed  to  Leigh  Hunt  two  or  three  of  Keats's  poems.  Of 
the  reception  of  one  of  them  {Hozv  Many  Bards  Gild  the 
Lapses  of  Time)  Clarke  said: 

"  I  could  not  but  anticipate  that  Hunt  would  speak  encouragingly,  and 
indeed  approvingly,  of  the  compositions — written,  too,  by  a  youth  under 
age ;  but  my  partial  spirit  was  not  prepared  for  the  unhesitating  and  prompt 
admiration  which  broke  forth  before  he  had  read  twenty  lines  of  the  first 
poem."^ 

*  Charles  and  Mary  Cowden  Clarke,  Recollections  of  Writers,  p.  132. 

32 


33 

Hunt  invited  Keats  to  visit  him.  Of  this  first  meeting  be- 
tween the  two  men,  Clarke    wrote : 

"  That  was  a  red  letter  day  in  the  young  poet's  life,  and  one  which  will 
never  fade  with  me  while  memory  lasts.  The  character  and  expression  of 
Keats's  features  would  arrest  even  the  casual  passenger  in  the  street ;  and 
now  they  were  wrought  to  a  tone  of  animation  that  I  could  not  but  watch 
with  interest,  knowing  what  was  in  store  for  him  from  the  bland  encour- 
agement, and  Spartan  deference  in  attention,  with  fascinating  conversa- 
tional eloquence,  that  he  was  to  encounter  and  receive.  .  .  .  The  interview, 
v/hich  stretched  into  three  '  morning  calls  ',  was  the  prelude  to  many  after- 
scenes  and  saunterings  about  Caen  Wood  and  its  neighborhood ;  for  Keats 
was  suddenly  made  a  familiar  of  the  household,  and  was  always  welcomed."^ 

Hunt's  account  of  the  meeting  is  as  follows : 

f  I  shall  never  forget  the  impression  made  upon  me  by  the  exuberant  speci- 
mens of  genuine  though  young  poetry  that  were  laid  before  me,  and  the 
promise  of  which  was  seconded  by  the  fine  fervid  countenance  of  the 
writer.  We  became  intimate  on  the  spot,  and  I  found  the  young  poet's 
heart  as  warm  as  his  imagination.  We  read  and  we  walked  together,  and 
used  to  write  verse  of  an  evening  upon  a  given  subject.  No  imaginative 
pleasure  was  left  untouched  by  us,  or  unenjoyed;  from  the  recollections  of 
the  bards  and  patriots  of  old,  to  the  luxury  of  a  summer  rain  at  our 
window,  or  the  clicking  of  the  coal  in  the  winter-time.  Not  long  after- 
wards, having  the  pleasure  of  entertaining  at  dinner  Mr.  Godwin,  Mr. 
Hazlitt,  and  Mr.  Basil  Montagu,  I  showed  the  verses  of  my  young  friend, 
and  they  were  pronounced  to  be  as  extraordinary  as  I  thought  them."* 

Leigh  Hunt  discovered  Keats,  by  no  means  a  small  thing,  for 
as  he  himself  has  said :  "  To  admire  and  comment  upon  the 
genius  that  two  or  three  hundred  years  have  applauded,  and 
to  discover  what  will  partake  of  applause  two  or  three  hundred 
years  hence,  are  processes  of  a  very  different  description."* 
With  the  same  power  of  prophetic  discernment,  writing  in 
1828,  he  realized  to  the  full  the  greatness  of  Keats  and  pre- 
dicted that  growth  of  his  fame  in  the  future  which  has  since 
taken  place.^  Keats's  account  of  his  reception  is  given  in  the 
sonnet  Keen  fitful  gusts  are  whisp'ring  here  and  there: 

'Ibid.,  p.   133. 

*  Hunt,  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries ;  -juith  Recollections 
of  the  Author's  Life  and  of  his  Visit  to  Italy,  p.  247. 

*  Ibid.,  p.   251.  ^  Ibid.,  pp.  246-272. 


34 

"  For  I  am  brimful!  of  the  friendliness 
That  in  a  little  cottage  I  have  found ; 
Of  fair  hair'd  Milton's  eloquent  distress, 
And  all  his  love  for  gentle  Lycid  drown'd ; 
Of  lovely  Laura  in  her  light  green  dress, 
And  faithful  Petrarch  gloriously  crowned." 

The  date  of  the  introduction  of  Keats  to  Hunt  has  been 
placed  variously  from  November,  1815,  to  the  end  of  the  year 
1816.     He  says: 

"  It  was  not  at  Hampstead  that  I  first  saw  Keats.  It  was  in  York  Build- 
ings, in  the  New  Road  (No.  8),  where  I  wrote  part  of  the  Indicator — and 
he  resided  with  me  while  in  Mortimer  Terrace,  Kentish  Town  (No.  13), 
where  I  concluded  it.  I  mention  this  for  the  curious  in  such  things,  among 
whom  I  am  one."' 

If  this  statement  were  correct,  it  would  make  the  meeting 
about  two  or  three  years  later  than  has  generally  been  sup- 
posed, for  Leigh  Hunt  did  not  move  to  York  Buildings  until 

1818,  and  he  did  not  begin  work  on  the  Indicator  until  October, 

1819.  Clarke  states  positively  that  the  meeting  took  place  at 
Hampstead.  From  this  evidence  Mr.  Colvin  has  suggested 
the  early  spring  of  18 16  as  the  most  probable  date.'^  What 
seems  better  evidence  than  any  that  has  yet  been  brought  for- 
ward is  a  passage  in  The  Examiner  of  June  i,  1817,  in  Hunt's 
review  of  Keats's  Poems  of  1817,  where  he  says  that  the  poet 
is  a  personal  friend  whom  he  announced  to  the  public  a  short 
time  ago  (this  allusion  can  only  be  to  an  article  in  The  Exam- 
iner of  December  i,  1816)  and  that  the  friendship  dates  from 
"  no  greater  distance  of  time  than  the  announcement  above 
mentioned.  We  had  published  one  of  his  sonnets  in  our  paper,^ 
without  knowing  more  of  him  than  of  any  other  anonymous 
correspondent;  but  at  the  period  in  question  a  friend  brought 
us  one  morning  some  copies  in  verse,  which  he  said  were  from 
the  pen  of  a  youth.  .  .  .  We  had  not  read  more  than  a  dozen 
lines  when  we  recognized  a  young  poet  indeed."     This  seems 

'  Autobiography,  II,  pp.  27,  59. 

^  Colvin,  Keats,  p.  222. 

*  This  refers  to  Keats's  first  published  poem,  the  sonnet  O  Solitude,  if 
I  must  with  thee  dwell,  published  (without  comment)  in  The  Examiner  of 
May  5,  1816. 


35 

conclusive  evidence  that  the  meeting  did  not  take  place  until 
the  winter  of  i8i6,  for  Hunt's  testimony  written  in  1817,  when 
the  circumstance  was  fresh  in  his  mind  is  certainly  more  trust- 
worthy than  his  impression  of  it  at  the  time  that  he  revised  his 
Autobiography  in  1859  at  the  age  of  seventy-five  years. 

The  two  men,  before  they  came  in  contact,  had  much  in 
common,  and  Hunt's  influence,  while  in  some  cases  an  inspir- 
ing force,  more  often  fostered  instincts  already  existing  in 
Keats.  Both  possessed  by  nature  a  deep  love  of  poetry,  color 
and  melody,  and  both  "  were  given  to  '  luxuriating '  somewhat 
voluptuously  over  the  '  deliciousness '  of  the  beautiful  in  art, 
books  or  nature."^  At  the  very  beginning  of  their  acquaint- 
ance, notwithstanding  a  disparity  in  age  of  eleven  years,  they 
were  wonderfully  drawn  to  each  other.  Spenser  was  their 
favorite  poet.  Both  had  a  great  love  for  Chaucer,  for  Oriental 
fable  and  for  Chivalric  romance,  and  an  unusual  knowledge  of 
Greek  myth.  But  even  at  the  height  of  their  intimacy,  the 
friendship  seems  to  have  remained  more  intellectual  than  per- 
sonal, a  fact  due  no  doubt  to  Keats's  reserve  and  Hunt's  "  in- 
curiousness."^*'  Except  for  this  drawback  Hunt  considered 
the  friendship  ideal.  He  says :  "  Mr.  Keats  and  I  were  old 
friends  of  the  old  stamp,  between  whom  there  was  no  such 
thing  as  obligation,  except  the  pleasure  of  it.  He  enjoyed  the 
privilege  of  greatness  with  all  whom  he  knew,  rendering  it 
delightful  to  be  obliged  by  him,  and  an  equal,  but  not  a  greater 
delight,  to  oblige.  It  was  a  pleasure  to  his  friends  to  have 
him  in  their  houses,  and  he  did  not  grude  it."^^ 

Through  Hunt,  Keats  was  introduced  to  a  circle  of  literary 
men  whose  companionship  was  an  important  factor  in  his  de- 
velopment, notably  Haydon,  Godwin,  Hazlitt,  Shelley,  Vincent 
Novello,  Horace  Smith,  Cornelius  Webbe,  Basil  Montagu,  the 
Olliers,  Barry  Cornwall,  and  later  Wordsworth. 

For  about  a  year  following  the  meeting  of  the  two,  Hunt 
undoubtedly  exerted  the  strongest  influence  of  any  living  man 
over  the  young  poet.     Severn  said  that  Keats's  introduction  to 

*  Colvin,  Keats,  p.  34. 

'^'^  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries,  p.  257. 

^  Ibid.,  pp.  257-258. 


36 

Hunt  wrought  a  great  change  in  him  and  "  intoxicated  him 
with  an  excess  of  enthusiasm  which  kept  by  him  four  or  five 
years.^^  Mr.  Forman  says  that  "  Charles  Cowden  Clarke,  as 
his  early  mentor,  Leigh  Hunt  and  Haydon  as  his  most  pow- 
erful encouragers  at  the  important  epoch  of  adolescence,  must 
be  credited  with  much  of  the  active  influence  that  took  Keats 
out  of  the  path  to  a  medical  practitioner's  life,  and  set  his  feet 
in  the  devious  paths  of  literature."^^  Keats's  interest  in  his 
profession  had  decreased  as  his  knowledge  and  love  of  poetry 
gTew.  With  the  publication  of  his  Poems  in  1817,  and  his  re- 
tirement in  April  of  that  year  from  London  to  the  Isle  of 
Wight  "  to  be  alone  and  improve  himself  and  to  continue  £^^3;- 
niion,  his  decision  was  finally  made  in  favor  of  a  literary 
life.  Hunt's  aid  at  this  time  took  the  practical  form  of  pub- 
lishing Keats's  poems  in  The  Examiner  and  of  drawing  the 
attention  of  the  public  to  them  by  comments  and  reviews. 
Whether  he  ever  paid  Keats  for  any  of  his  contributions  to  his 
periodicals  is  not  known. ^*  Through  the  influence  of  Hunt  the 
Oilier  brothers  were  induced  to  undertake  the  publication  of 
Keats's  first  volume  of  poems.  It  is  dedicated  to  Leigh  Hunt 
in  the  sonnet  Glory  and  loveliness  have  passed  azvay.  The 
sestet  refers  directly  to  him : 

But    there    are    left    delights    as    high    as    these, 

And  I  shall  ever  bless  my  destiny, 

That  in  a  time,  when  under  pleasant  trees 

Pan  is  no  longer  sought,  I  feel  a  free 

A  leafy  luxury,  seeing  I  could  please 

With  these  poor  ofiferings,  a  man  like  thee."" 

Hunt  replied  in  the  sonnet  To  John  Keats,  quoted  here  in  full 
because  of  its  inacessibility : 

"  'Tis  well  you  think  me  truly  one  of  those, 
Whose  sense  discerns  the  loveliness  of  things  ; 
For  surely  as  I  feel  the  bird  that  sings 
Behind  the  leaves,  or  dawn  as  it  up  grows, 

"Sharp,  Life  and  Letters  of  Joseph  Severn,  p.  163. 
"  Works,  I,  p.  30. 

'*  Mr.  Forman,  after  a  systematic  search  has  been  able  to  find  no  proof  in 
either  direction.     (Works,  III,  p.  8.) 
'^  Works,  I.,  p.  5. 


37 

Or  the  rich  bee  rejoicing  as  he  goes, 

Or  the  glad  issue  of  emerging  springs, 

Or  overhead  the  glide  of  a   dove's  wings, 

Or  turf,  or  trees,  or  midst  of  all,  repose. 

And  surely  as  I   feel  things  lovelier  still. 

The  human  look,  and  the  harmonious  form 

Containing  woman,  and  the  smile  in  ill. 

And  such   a  heart  as   Charles's  wise  and  warm, — 

As  surely  as  all  this,  I  see  ev'n  now, 

Young  Keats,  a  flowering  laurel  on  your  brow."" 

In  1820,  Hunt  dedicated  his  translation  of  Tasso's  Aminta  to 
Keats. 

In  spite  of  a  eulogistic  article  by  Hunt  running  in  The 
Examiners  of  June  i,  July  6  and  13,  1817,  and  other  notices  in 
some  of  the  provincial  papers,  the  Poems  sold  not  very  well  at 
first,  and  later,  not  at  all.^^  Praise  from  the  editor  of  The 
Examiner,  although  offered  with  the  kindest  intentions  in  the 
world,  was  about  the  worst  thing  that  could  possibly  have  hap- 
pened to  Keats,  for,  politically  and  poetically,  Leigh  Hunt  was 
most  unpopular  at  this  time  ;^^  and  it  was  noised  abroad  that 
Keats  too  was  a  radical  in  politics  and  in  religion,  a  dis- 
ciple of  the  apostate  in  his  attack  on  the  established  and 
accepted  creed  of  poetry.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Keats's  interest 
in  politics  decreased  as  his  knowledge  of  poetry  increased, 
although,  "  as  a  party-badge  and  sign  of  ultra-liberalism,"  he, 
like  Hunt,  Byron  and  Shelley  continued  to  wear  the  soft  turn- 
down collars  in  contrast  to  the  stiff  collars  and  enormous 
cravats  of  the  time.^"  In  religion  Keats  vented  his  dislike  of 
sect  and  creed  on  the  Kirk  of  Scotland,  as  Hunt  had  on  the 
Methodists.  His  "  simply-sensuous  Beauty-worship  "  Palgrave 
attributes  to  the  "  moral  laxity  "  of  Hunt.^''  Unless  Palgrave, 
like  Haydon,  refers  to  Hunt's  unorthodoxy  in  matters  of 
church  and  state,  it  is  difficult  to  understand  on  what  evidence 

^'^  Foliage,   p.    125. 
"  Colvin,  Keats,  p.  66. 

^*  A  further  account  of  the  disastrous  effects  of  his  partisanship  will  be 
found  in  the  discussion  of  the  Cockney  School,  Ch.  V. 
"The  Century  Magazine,  XXIII,  p.  706. 
^  Palgrave,  Poetical  Works  of  John  Keats,  p.  269. 


38 

he  bases  this  statement;  in  the  first  place,  a  charge  of  moral 
laxity  is  not  borne  out  by  the  recorded  facts  of  Hunt's  life,  but 
only  by  such  untrustworthy  tradition  as  still  lingers  in  the 
public  mind  from  the  Cockney  School  articles  of  Blackwood's 
and  the  Quarterly.  Carlyle  said  that  he  was  of  "most  exem- 
plary private  deportment."-^  Byron,  Shelley  and  Lamb  testi- 
fied to  his  virtuous  life.  In  the  second  place,  a  close  compari- 
son of  the  works  of  the  two  now  leads  one  to  conclude  that 
"  simply-sensuous  Beauty-worship  "  existed  to  a  much  higher 
degree  in  Keats  than  in  Hunt,  and  that  so  strong  an  innate 
tendency  would  have  developed  without  outward  stimulus  from 
any  one.  While  both  men  sought  the  good  and  worshipped 
the  beautiful,  Keats,  unlike  Hunt,  recognized  somewhat  "the 
burthen  and  the  mystery  "  of  human  life. 

Keats,  during  his  stay  in  the  Isle  of  Wight  and  a  visit  to 
Oxford  with  Bailey  in  the  spring  and  summer  of  1817,  worked 
on  Endymion,  finishing  it  in  the  fall.  The  letters  exchanged 
between  him  and  Hunt  during  his  absence  were  friendly,  but  a 
feeling  of  coolness  began  before  his  return.  In  a  letter  from 
Margate  May  10,  1817,  there  is  a  curiously  obscure  reference 
to  the  Nymphs: 

"How  have  you  got  on  among  them?  How  are  the  Nymphs f  I  suppose 
they  have  led  you  a  fine  dance.  Where  are  you  now? — in  Judea,  Cappa- 
docia,  or  the  parts  of  Lybia  about  Cyrene?  Stranger  from  'Heaven, 
Hues,  and  Prototypes  '  I  wager  you  have  given  several  new  turns  to  the 
old  saying,  '  Now  the  maid  was  fair  and  pleasant  to  look  on,'  as  well  as 
made  a  little  variation  in  '  Once  upon  a  time.'  Perhaps,  too,  you  have 
rather  varied,  '  Here  endeth  the  first  lesson.'  Thus  I  hope  you  have  made 
a  horseshoe  business  of  '  unsuperfluous  life,'  '  faint  bowers  '  and  fibrous 
roots.  "^ 

A  letter  written  by  Haydon  to  Keats,  dated  May  11,  1817, 
warned  Keats  against  Hunt,  and,  with  others  of  its  kind,  was 
possibly  the  insidious  beginning  of  the  coolness  which  followed : 
"  Beware,  for  God's  sake  of  the  delusions  and  sophistications 
that  are  ripping  up  the  talents  and  morality  of  our  friend  !  He 
will  go  out  of  the  world  the  victim  of  his  own  weakness  and 
the  dupe  of  his  own  self-delusions,  with  the  contempt  of  his 

''^  Autobiography,   II,  p.   266.  ^  Works,  IV,  p.  16. 


39 

enemies  and  the  sorrow  of  his  friends,  and  the  cause  he  under- 
took to  support  injured  by  his  own  neglect  of  character."-^     A 

^  Haydon  and  Hunt  had  originally  been  very  intimate,  as  is  shown  by 
the  letters  written  hy  the  former  from  Paris  during  1814,  and  by  his  at- 
tentions to  Hunt  in  Surrey  Gaol.  A  letter  to  Wilkie,  dated  October  27, 
1816,  gives  an  attractive  portrait  of  Hunt,  and  from  this  evidence  it  is 
inferred  that  the  change  in  Haydon's  attitude  came  about  in  the  early 
part  of  181 7,  and  that  a  small  unpleasantness  was  allowed  by  him  to  out- 
weigh a  friendship  of  long  standing.  After  two  weeks  spent  with  Hunt  he 
had  written  of  him  as  "  one  of  the  most  delightful  companions.  Full  of 
poetry  and  art,  and  amiable  humour,  we  argue  always  with  full  hearts  on 
everything  but  religion  and  Bonaparte.  .  .  .  Though  Leigh  Hunt  is  not 
deep  in  knowledge,  moral  metaphysical  or  classical,  yet  he  is  intense  in 
feeling  and  has  an  intellect  forever  on  the  alert.  He  is  like  one  of  those 
instruments  on  three  legs,  which,  throw  it  how  you  will,  always  pitches  on 
two,  and  has  a  spike  sticking  for  ever  up  and  ever  ready  for  you.  He 
"  sets  "  at  a  subject  with  a  scent  like  a  pointer.  He  is  a  remarkable  man, 
and  created  a  sensation  by  his  independence,  his  disinterestedness  in  public 
matters ;  and  by  the  truth,  acuteness  and  taste  of  his  dramatic  criticisms, 
he  raised  the  rank  of  newspapers,  and  gave  by  his  example  a  literary 
feeling  to  the  weekly  ones  more  especially.  As  a  poet,  I  think  him  full  of 
the  genuine  feeling.  His  third  canto  in  Rimini  is  equal  to  anything  in 
any  language  of  that  sweet  sort.  Perhaps  in  his  wishing  to  avoid  the 
monotony  of  the  Pope  school,  he  may  have  shot  into  the  other  extreme ; 
and  his  invention  of  obscene  [sic]  words  to  express  obscene  feelings  bord- 
ers sometimes  on  affectation.  But  these  are  trifles  compared  with  the 
beauty  of  the  poem,  the  intense  painting  of  the  scenery,  and  the  deep 
burning  in  of  the  passion  which  trembles  in  every  line.  Thus  far  as  a 
critic,  an  editor  and  a  poet.  As  a  man  I  know  none  with  such  an  affec- 
tionate heart,  if  never  opposed  in  his  opinions.  He  has  defects  of  course : 
one  of  his  great  defects  is  getting  inferior  people  about  him  to  listen,  too 
fond  of  shining  at  any  expense  in  society,  and  love  of  approbation  from  the 
darling  sex  bordering  on  weakness ;  though  to  women  he  is  delightfully 
pleasant,  yet  they  seem  more  to  handle  him  as  a  delicate  plant.  I  don't  know 
if  they  do  not  put  a  confidence  in  him  which  to  me  would  be  mortifying. 
He  is  a  man  of  sensibility  tinged  with  morbidity  and  of  such  sensitive 
organization  of  body  that  the  plant  is  not  more  alive  to  touch  than  he. 
.  .  .  He  is  a  composition,  as  we  all  are,  of  defects  and  delightful  qualities, 
indolently  averse  to  worldly  exertion,  because  it  harasses  the  musings  of  his 
fancy,  existing  only  by  the  common  duties  of  life,  yet  ignorant  of  them, 
and  often  suffering  from  their  neglect."  (Haydon,  Life  Letters  and  Table 
Talk,  ed.   R.   H,   Stoddard,  pp,    15S-156.) 

Haydon  said  that  the  rupture  came  about  because  Hunt  insisted 
upon  speaking  of  our  Lord  and  his  Apostles  in  a  condescending  manner, 


40 

letter  in  reply  from  Keats,  written  the  day  after  he  wrote  the 
passage  about  the  Nymphs,  accounts  for  its  dissembling  tone : 

"  I  wrote  to  Hunt  yesterday — scarcely  know  what  I  said  in  it.  I  could  not 
talk  about  Poetry  in  the  way  I  should  have  liked  for  I  was  not  in  humour 
with  either  his  or  mine.  His  self  delusions  are  very  lamentable — they  have 
inticed  him  into  a  Situation  which  I  should  be  less  eager  after  than  that  of 
a  galley  Slave, — what  you  observe  thereon  is  very  true  must  be  in  time 
[sic]. 

Perhaps  it  is  a  self  delusion  to  say  so — but  I  think  I  could  not  be  de- 
ceived in  the  manner  that  Hunt  is — may  I  die  to-morrow  if  I  am  to  be. 
There  is  no  greater  Sin  after  the  seven  deadly  than  to  flatter  oneself  into 
the  idea  of  being  a  great  Poet.  .  .  . "" 

To  judge  from  the  testimony  of  his  brother  George  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  Keats  succumbed  to  Haydon's  influence  against 
Hunt :  "  his  nervous,  morbid  temperament  led  him  to  miscon- 
strue the  motives  of  his  best  friends."'^  *  In  the  last  days  of  his 
life,  his  suspicion  and  bitterness  were  general.  In  a  letter  to 
Bailey,  June,  1818,  Keats  says:  "  I  have  suspected  everybody."-® 
January,  1820,  he  wrote  Georgiana  Keats,  "  Upon  the  whole  I 
dislike  mankind."^''  Haydon  may  have  sincerely  believed  Hunt's 
influence  to  be  injurious  because  of  the  latter's  unorthodoxy  in 
matters  of  religion.  He  wrote  that  Keats  "  could  not  bring 
his  mind  to  bear  on  one  object,  and  was  at  the  mercy  of  every 
petty  theory  that  Leigh  Hunt's  ingenuity  would  suggest.  .  .  . 
He  had  a  tendency  to  religion  when  I  first  knew  him,  but  Leigh 
Hunt  soon  forced  it  from  his  mind.  .  .  .  Leigh  Hunt  was  the 
unhinger  of  his  best  dispositions.  Latterly,  Keats  saw  Leigh 
Hunt's  weaknesses.  I  distrusted  his  leader,  but  Keats  would 
not  cease  to  visit  him,  because  he  thought  Hunt  ill-used.     This 

and  that  he  rebelled  against  Hunt's  "  audacious  romancing  over  the 
Biblical  conceptions  of  the  Almighty."  (Haydon,  Life  Letters  and  Table 
Talk,  p.  65.)  This  view,  in  the  light  of  Haydon's  general  unreliability, 
may  be  mere  romancing;  for  Keats,  writing  on  January  13,  181 8,  gave  the 
following  explanation  of  the  quarrel :  "  Mrs.  H.  (Hunt)  was  in  the  habit 
of  borrowing  silver  from  Haydon — the  last  time  she  did  so,  Haydon  asked 
her  to  return  it  at  a  certain  time — she  did  not — Haydon  sent  for  it — Hunt 
went  to  expostulate  on  the  indelicacy,  etc. — they  got  to  words  and  parted 
for  ever."     (Keats,  Works,  IV,  p.  58). 

'*  Works,  IV,  p.  20. 

'"Milnes,  Life,  Letters  and  Literary  Remains  of  John  Keats,  II,  p.  44. 

"Works,  IV,  p.  114.  "Ibid.,  V,  p.   142. 


41 

shows  Keats's  goodness  of  heart."^*  It  is  not  to  be  regretted 
that  Haydon  lessened  Keats's  estimate  of  Hunt's  Hterary  infal- 
libility, for  his  influence  was  most  injurious  in  that  direction; 
but  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  he  impugned  a  friendship  in  which 
Hunt  was  certainly  sincere  and  by  which  Keats  had  benefited. 

In  September,  just  before  Keats's  return,  he  seems  some- 
what mollified  and  writes  to  John  Hamilton  Reynolds  of  Leigh 
Hunt's  pleasant  companionship ;  he  has  failings,  "  but  then  his 
make-ups  are  very  good."-'' 

On  his  return  to  Hampstead  in  October,  1817,  Keats  found 
affairs  among  the  circle  in  a  very  bad  way.^*' 

Everybody  "  seems  at  Loggerheads — There's  Hunt  infatuated — there's  Hay- 
don's  picture  in  statu  quo — There's  Hunt  walks  up  and  down  his  painting 
room — criticising  every  head  most  unmercifully.  There's  Horace  Smith 
tired  of  Hunt.  '  The  web  of  our  life  is  of  mingled  yarn.' ...  I  am  quite  dis- 
gusted with  literary  men  and  will  never  know  another  except  Wordsworth 
— no  not  even  Byron.  Here  is  an  instance  of  the  friendship  of  such. 
Haydon  and  Hunt  have  known  each  other  many  years  .  .  .  Haydon  says  to 
me,  Keats,  don't  show  your  lines  to  Hunt  on  any  Account  or  he  will  have 
done  half  for  you — so  it  appears  Hunt  wishes  it  to  be  thought.  When  he 
met  Reynolds  in  the  Theatre,  John  told  him  that  I  was  getting  on  to  the 
completion  of  4,000  lines — Ah  !  says  Hunt,  had  it  not  been  for  me  they 
would  have  been  7,000  !  If  he  will  say  this  to  Reynolds,  what  would  he 
to  other  people  ?  Haydon  received  a  Letter  a  little  while  back  on  this 
subject  from  some  Lady — which  contains  a  caution  to  me,  thro'  him,  on  the 
subject — now  is  not  all  this  a  most  paultry  (sic)   thing  to  think  about?"" 

Hunt  had  tried  to  persuade  Keats  not  to  write  a  long  poem. 
Keats  wrote  of  this :  "  Hunt's  dissuasion  was  of  no  avaiP^ — 
I  refused  to  visit  Shelley  that  I  might  have  my  own  unfettered 
scope;  and  after  all,  I  shall  have  the  reputation  of  Hunt's 
eleve.  His  corrections  and  amputations  will  by  the  knowing 
ones  be  traced  in  the  poem."^^ 

During  1818,  Leigh  Hunt  in  his  critical  work  remained 
silent  concerning  Keats,  probably  because  of  his  sincere  disap- 
proval of  Endyniion  and  secondly,  because  he  realized  that  his 

'^  Life,  Letters  and  Table  Talk,  p.  208. 

'^  Works,  IV,  p.  31.  ^Ibid.,  IV,  p.  60. 

"  Ibid.,  IV,  pp.  37-38. 

'^  Ibid.,  IV,  p.  38,  Keats  gives  his  argument  in  favor  of  a  long  poem. 

^^Ibid.,  IV,  p.   38. 


42 

praise  would  be  injurious.  The  attacks  on  Hunt  in  Black- 
wood's and  the  Quarterly  had  foreshadowed  an  attack  of  the 
same  virulent  kind  on  Keats.  The  realization  came  with  the 
publication  of  Endymion.  The  article  on  "Johnny  Keats," 
fourth  of  the  series  on  the  Cockney  School  in  Blackwood's 
Magazine,  appeared  almost  simultaneously  with  his  return 
from  Scotland,  and  the  one  in  the  Quarterly  in  September 
of  the  same  year.  These  will  be  discussed  in  a  later  chapter. 
Suspicions  of  neglect  on  the  part  of  Hunt  murmured  in  Keats's 
mind  like  a  discordant  undertone,  although  the  friendship  con- 
tinued as  warm  as  ever  on  Hunt's  part.  Keats  was  passive, 
without,  however,  the  old  sense  of  dependence  and  trust. 
December  28,  1817,  he  writes  to  his  brothers  of  the  "drivel- 
ling egotism  "  of  The  Examiner  article  on  the  obsoletion  of 
Christmas  gambols  and  pastimes.^*  In  a  journal  letter  written 
to  George  Keats  and  his  wife  in  Louisville  during  December 
and  January,  1819,  the  old  liking  has  become  almost  repug- 
nance :  "  Hunt  keeps  on  in  his  old  way — I  am  completely  tired 
of  it  all.  He  has  lately  published  a  Pocket  Book  called  the 
literary  Pocket-Book — full  of  the  most  sickening  stuff  you 
can  imagine  ";^^  yet  Keats  suffered  himself  to  become  a  con- 
tributor to  this  same  book  with  two  sonnets,  The  Human 
Seasons  and  To  Ailsa  Rock.    Again  in  the  same  letter : 

"  The  night  we  went  to  Novello's  there  was  a  complete  set-to  of  Mozart 
and  punning.  I  was  so  completely  tired  of  it  that  if  I  were  to  follow 
my  own  inclinations  I  should  never  meet  any  of  that  set  again,  not 
even  Hunt  who  is  certainly  a  pleasant  fellow  in  the  main  when  you 
are  with  him,  but  in  reality  he  is  vain,  egotistical,  and  disgusting  in 
matters  of  taste  and  morals.  He  understands  many  a  beautiful  thing ; 
but  then,  instead  of  giving  other  minds  credit  for  the  same  degree  of  per- 
ception as  he  himself  possesses, — he  begins  an  explanation  in  such  a  curious 
manner  that  our  taste  and  self-love  is  offended  continually.  Hunt  does  one 
harm  by  making  fine  things  petty  and  beautiful  things  hateful.  Through 
him  I  am  indifferent  to  Mozart,  I  care  not  for  white  Busts — and  many  a 
glorious  thing  when  associated  with  him  becomes  a  nothing."^' 

Continuing  in  the  same  strain : 

"  I  will  have  no  more  Wordsworth  or  Hunt  in  particular.     Why  should  we 
be  of  the  tribe  of  Manasseh  when  we  can  wander  with  Esau?     Why  should 

^Ibid.,  IV,  p.  49.  ^Ibid.,  IV,  p.  193-  ^^  Ibid.,  IV,  pp.  195-196. 


43 

we  kick  against  the  Pricks,  when  we  can  walk  on  Roses  ?  .  .  .  I  don't  mean 
to  deny  Wordsworth's  grandeur  and  Hunt's  merit,  but  I  mean  to  say  that 
we  need  not  to  be  teazed  with  grandeur  and  merit,  when  we  can  have  them 
uncontaminated  and  unobtrusive.  Let  us  have  the  old  Poets  and  Robin 
Hood."^ 

And  again : 

"  Hunt  has  damned  Hampstead  and  masks  and  sonnets  and  Italian  tales. 
Wordsworth  has  damned  the  lakes — Milman  has  damned  the  old  drama — 
West  has  damned  wholesale.  Peacock  has  damned  satire — Oilier  has 
damned  Music — Hazlitt  has  damned  the  bigoted  and  the  blue-stockinged; 
how  durst  the  Man  ? !  "'^ 

A  parody  on  the  conversation  of  Hunt's  set,  in  which  he  is  the 
principal  actor,  carries  with  it  a  ridicule  that  is  unkinder  than 
the  bitterness  of  dislike,  and  difficult  to  reconcile  with  the 
fact  that  Keats  at  the  same  time  preserved  the  semblance 
of  friendship."^ 

"  Scene,  a  little  Parlour — Enter  Hunt — Gattie — Hazlitt — Mrs.  Novello — 
Oilier.  Gattie : — Ha !  Hunt  got  into  your  new  house  ?  Ha  !  Mrs.  No- 
vello :  seen  Altam  and  his  wife?  Mrs.  N. :  Yes  (with  a  grin)  it's  Mr.  Hunt's 
isn't  it?  Gattie:  Hunt's?  no,  ha!  Mr.  Oilier,  I  congratulate  you  upon  the 
highest  compliment  I  ever  heard  paid  to  the  Book.  Mr.  Hazlitt,  I  hope  you 
are  well.  Hazlitt: — Yes  Sir,  no  Sir — Mr.  Hunt  (at  the  Music)  'La  Bion- 
dina '  etc.  Hazlitt,  did  you  ever  hear  this? — "La  Biondina  "  &c.  Hazlitt: 
O  no  Sir — I  never — Oilier: — Do  Hunt  give  it  us  over  again — divine — 
Gattie: — divino — Hunt  when  does  your  Pocket-Book  come  out — Hunt: 
— 'What  is  this  absorbs  me  quite?'  O  we  are  spinning  on  a  little,  we 
shall  floridize  soon  I  hope.  Such  a  thing  was  very  much  wanting — people 
think  of  nothing  but  money  getting — now  for  me  I  am  rather  inclined  to 
the  liberal  side  of  things.  I  am  reckoned  lax  in  my  Christian  principles, 
etc.,  etc.,  etc.,  etc.*" 

Such  a  dual  attitude  in  Keats  can  be  explained  only  by  a 
dual  feeling  in  his  mind,  for  it  is  impossible  to  believe  him 
capable  of  deliberate  deceit.  He  may  have  realized  Hunt's 
affectation  and  superficiality  and  "  disgusting  taste " ;  he  was 
probably  swayed  by  Haydon  to  distrust  Hunt's  morals;  the 
suspicions  planted  by  Haydon  concerning  Endymion  rankled; 
but  at  the  same  time  Hunt's  charm  of  personality,  and  the 
assistance  and  encouragement  given  in  the  first  days  of  their 

"Ibid.,  IV,  pp.  12.  ^'Ibid.,  IV,  p.  90. 

''Ibid.,  I,  p.  34.  ^'Ibid.,  V,  198. 


44 

friendship,  formed  a  bond  difficult  to  break.  Of  Leigh  Hunt's 
attitude  there  can  be  no  doubt,  for  through  his  long  life  of 
more  than  threescore  years  and  ten,  filled  with  many  friend- 
ships of  many  kinds,  he  can  in  no  instance  be  charged  with 
insincerity.  There  is  no  conclusive  proof  on  record  to  show 
him  deserving  of  the  insinuations  which  Keats  believed  in 
respect  to  Endymion,  for  Haydon  is  not  trustworthy,  and  the 
opinion  of  a  lady  given  through  Haydon  may  be  dismissed 
on  the  same  grounds.*^  Reynolds'  testimony  is  not  damaging 
in  itself,  and  in  the  absence  of  facts  to  the  contrary  may  have 
been  wrongly  construed  by  Keats.  To  the  charges  against 
himself,  Leigh  Hunt  has  replied  in  the  following  passage, 
"  affecting  and  persuasive  in  its  unrestrained  pathos  of  remon- 
strance "  :*^ 

"  an  irritable  morbidity  appears  even  to  have  driven  his  suspicions  to  ex- 
cess ;  and  this  not  only  with  regard  to  the  acquaintance  whom  he  might 
reasonably  suppose  to  have  had  some  advantages  over  him,  but  to  myself, 
who  had  none ;  for  I  learned  the  other  day,  with  extreme  pain,  such  as  I 
am  sure  so  kind  and  reflecting  a  man  as  Mr.  Monckton  Milnes  would  not 
have  inflicted  on  me  could  he  have  foreseen  it,  that  Keats  at  one  period 
of  his  intercourse  suspected  Shelley  and  myself  of  a  wish  to  see  him  under- 
valued !  Such  are  the  tricks  which  constant  infelicity  can  play  with  the 
most  noble  natures.  For  Shelley,  let  Adonais  answer.  For  myself,  let 
every  word  answer  which  I  uttered  about  him,  living  and  dead,  and  such  as 
I  now  proceed  to  repeat.  I  might  as  well  have  been  told  that  I  wished  to 
see  the  flowers  or  the  stars  undervalued,  or  my  own  heart  that  loved  him."" 

Hunt's  feeling  towards  Keats  is  nowhere  better  expressed  than 
in  his  Autobiography:  "I  could  not  love  him  as  deeply  as  I 
did  Shelley.  That  was  impossible.  But  my  affection  was  only 
second  to  the  one  which  I  entertained  for  that  heart  of 
hearts."" 

Keats's  atonement  is  contained  in  the  last  letter  that  he  ever 
wrote:  "  H  I  recover,  I  will  do  all  in  my  power  to  correct  the 

*'  Haydon  attempted  also  to  make  trouble  between  Wordsworth  and 
Hunt,  by  telling  the  former  that  Hunt's  admiration  for  him  was  only  a 
"  weather  cock  estimation "  and  by  insinuations  concerning  his  sincerity 
in  friendships.     (Haydon,  Life^  Letters  and  Table  Talk,  p.  197.) 

"J.  Ashcroft  Noble,  The  Sonnet  in  England,  and  Other  Essays,  p.  108. 

"  Autobiography,  II,  p.  42.  "  Autobiography,  H,  p.  44. 


45 

mistakes  made  during  sickness,  and  if  I  should  not,  all  my 
faults  will  be  forgiven."*^ 

Hay  don's  influence  over  Keats  was  at  its  height  in  1817  and 
1818.*"  His  gifts  and  his  enthusiasm,  his  "  fresh  magnifi- 
cence "*^  carried  Keats  by  storm.  It  was  not  until  about  July 
1818  that  a  reaction  against  Haydon  in  favor  of  Hunt  set  in, 
brought  about  by  money  transactions  between  Keats  and  Hay- 
don, and  the  indifference  of  the  latter  in  repaying  a  debt  when 
he  knew  Keats's  necessity.*^  Keats  probably  never  ceased  to 
feel  that  Hunt's  influence  as  a  poet  had  been  injurious,  as  in- 
deed it  was,  but  the  relative  stability  of  his  two  friends  ad- 
justed itself  after  this  experience  with  Haydon.  Afifairs 
seem  to  have  been  smoothed  over  with  Hunt,  and  were  not 
disturbed  again  until  a  short  time  before  Keats's  departure 
for  Italy,  when  his  morbid  suspicions,  which  even  led  him  to 
accuse  his  friend  Brown  of  flirting  with  Fanny  Brawne,*® 
seem  to  have  been  renewed. 

In  1820,  Brown,  with  whom  Keats  had  been  living  since  his 
brother  Tom's  death,  went  on  a  second  tour  to  Scotland. 
Keats,  unable  to  accompany  him,  took  a  lodging  in  Wesleyan 
Place,  Kentish  Town,  to  be  near  Hunt,  who  was  living  in 
Mortimer  Street.  Brown  says :  "  It  was  his  choice,  during 
my  absence  to  lodge  at  Kentish  Town,  that  he  might  be  near 
his  friend,  Leigh  Hunt,  in  whose  companionship  he  was  ever 
happy.^*^  In  a  letter  to  Fanny  Brawne,  Keats  said  Hunt 
"amuses  me  very  kindly."^^  It  is  not  likely,  judging  from  this 
overture,  that  there  had  ever  been  an  actual  cessation  of  inter- 
course, notwithstanding  what  Keats  wrote  in  his  letters ;  and 
the  act  points  to  a  revival  of  the  old  feeling  on  his  part.  About 
the  twenty-second  or  twenty-third  of  June,   1820,  Keats  left 

**  Works,  V,  p.  203. 

*"  Keats  wrote  Haydon,  "  There  are  three  things  to  rejoice  at  in  this  age 
"The  Excursion,  Your  Pictures,  and  Hazlitt's  depth  of  taste."  {Works,  IV, 
p.  56.) 

"Works,  II,  p.  187. 

''Ibid.,  V,  p.  116. 

'*Ibid.,  V,  p.    180. 

^Ibid.,  V,  p.  175. 

*'Ibid.,  V,  p.   174. 


46 

his  rooms  and  moved  to  Leigh  Hunt's  home  to  be  nursed.^^ 
He  remained  about  seven  weeks  with  the  family,  when  there 
occurred  an  unfortunate  incident  which  resulted  in  his  abrupt 
departure  August  12,  1820.  A  letter  of  Fanny  Brawne's  was 
delivered  to  him  two  days  late  with  the  seal  broken.  The 
contretemps  was  due  to  the  misconduct  of  a  servant,  but  it 
was  interpreted  by  Keats  as  treachery  on  the  part  of  the 
family.  At  the  moment  he  would  accept  no  explanations  or 
apologies.    He  writes  of  this  incident  to  Fanny  Brawne: 

"  My  friends  have  behaved  well  to  me  in  every  instance  but  one,  and  there 
they  have  become  tattlers,  and  inquisitors  into  my  conduct:  spying  upon 
a  secret  I  would  rather  die  than  share  it  with  anybody's  confidence.  For 
this  I  cannot  wish  them  well,  I  care  not  to  see  any  of  them  again.  If  I 
am  the  Theme,  I  will  not  be  the  Friend  of  idle  Gossips.  Good  gods  what 
a  shame  it  is  our  Loves  should  be  put  into  the  microscope  of  a  Coterie. 
Their  laughs  should  not  affect  you  (I  may  perhaps  give  you  reasons  some 
day  for  these  laughs,  for  I  suspect  a  few  people  to  hate  me  well  enough, 
for  reasons  I  know  of,  who  have  pretended  a  great  friendship  for  me) 
when  in  competition  with  one,  who  if  he  should  never  see  you  again  would 
make  you  the  Saint  of  his  memory.  These  Laughers,  who  do  not  like  you, 
who  envy  you  for  your  Beauty,  who  would  have  God-bless'd  me  from  you 
for  ever :  who  were  plying  me  with  disencouragements  with  respect  to  you 
eternally.  People  are  revengeful — do  not  mind  them — do  nothing  but  love 
me."^ 

In  his  next  letter  to  her  he  says : 

"  I  shall  never  be  able  to  endure  any  more  the  society  of  any  of  those  who 
used  to  meet  at  Elm  Cottage  and  Wentworth  Place.  The  last  two  years 
taste  like  brass  upon  my  Palate."  " 

The  lack  of  self-control  and  the  distrust  seen  in  these  ex- 
tracts show  that  Keats  was  laboring  under  hallucinations  pro- 
duced by  an  ill  mind  and  body;  the  letters  from  which  they 
have  been  taken  are  unnatural,  almost  terrible,  in  their  passion 
and  rebellion  against  fate. 

^'  That  he  needed  better  attention  than  he  could  receive  in  lodgings  is  seen 
from  an  account  of  Keats's  condition  given  in  Maria  Gisborne's  Journal 
(Ibid.j  V,  p.  182),  which  says  that  when  she  drank  tea  there  in  July, 
Keats  was  under  sentence  of  death  from  Dr.  Lamb :  "  he  never  spoke  and 
looks   emaciated." 

^  Works,  V,   p.    183-184.     The   quotation   follows   Keats's  punctuation. 

^Ibid.,  V,  p.  185. 


47 

Keats  moved  to  the  residence  of  the  Brawnes.  While  he 
was  here  the  trouble  seems  to  have  been  smoothed  over,  for  in 
a  letter  to  Hunt  he  says :  "  You  will  be  glad  to  hear  I  am  going 
to  delay  a  little  at  Mrs.  Brawne's.  I  hope  to  see  you  when- 
ever you  get  time,  for  I  feel  really  attached  to  you  for  your 
many  sympathies  with  me,  and  patience  at  all  my  lunes. 
.  .  .  Your  affectionate  friend,  John  Keats. "°^  To  Brown  he 
says :  "  Hunt  has  behaved  very  kindly  to  me  " ;  and  again : 
"  The  seal-breaking  business  is  over-blown.  I  think  no  more 
of  it."^®     Hunt's  reply  is  couched  in  most  affectionate  terms : 

"  Giovani   [sic]   Mio, 

I  shall  see  you  this  afternoon,  and  most  probably  every  day.  You  judge 
rightly  when  you  think  I  shall  be  glad  at  your  putting  up  awhile  where  you 
are,  instead  of  that  solitary  place.  There  are  humanities  in  the  house ; 
and  if  wisdom  loves  to  live  with  children  round  her  knees  (the  tax- 
gatherer  apart),  sick  wisdom,  I  think,  should  love  to  live  with  arms  about 
it's  waist.  I  need  not  say  how  you  gratify  me  by  the  impulse  that  led  you 
to  write  a  particular  sentence  in  your  letter,  for  you  must  have  seen  by 
this  time  how  much  I  am  attached  to  yourself. 

"  I  am  indicating  at  as  dull  a  rate  as  a  battered  finger-post  in  wet  weather. 
Not  that  I  am  ill :  for  I  am  very  well  altogether.  Your  affectionate  Friend, 
Leigh  Hunt."" 

This  was  probably  the  last  letter  written  by  him  to  Keats.  In 
September  Keats  went  to  Rome  with  Severn  to  escape  the 
hardships  of  the  winter  climate,  after  having  declined  an  invita- 
tion from  Shelley  to  visit  him  at  Pisa.  In  the  same  month, 
Hunt  published  an  affectionate  farewell  to  him  in  The  Indi- 
cator. An  announcement  of  his  death  appeared  in  The  Ex- 
aminer of  March  25,  1821.  The  story  of  the  personal  relations 
of  the  two  men  could  not  be  better  closed  than  with  the  words 
of  Hunt  written  March  8,  1821,  to  Severn  in  Rome  when  he 
believed  Keats  still  alive : 

"  If  he  can  bear  to  hear  of  us,  pray  tell  him ;  but  he  knows  it  already, 
and  can  put  it  into  better  language  than  any  man.  I  hear  that  he  does 
not  like  to  be  told  that  he  may  get  better ;  nor  is  it  to  be  wondered  at,  con- 
sidering his  firm  persuasion  that  he  shall  not  survive.  He  can  only  regard 
it  as  a  puerile  thing,  and  an  insinuation  that  he  shall  die.  But  if  his  per- 
suasion should  happen  to  be  no  longer  so  strong,  or  if  he  can  now  put  up 

"  Cornhill  Magazine,   1892. 

'"Works,  V,  p.  194.  ^Ibid.,  V,  p.  193- 


48 

with  attempts  to  console  him,  tell  him  of  what  I  have  said  a  thousand 
times,  and  what  I  still  (upon  my  honour)  think  always,  that  I  have  seen 
too  many  instances  of  recovery  from  apparently  desperate  cases  of  con- 
sumption not  to  be  in  hope  to  the  very  last.  If  he  still  cannot  bear  to 
hear  this,  tell  him — tell  that  great  poet  and  noblehearted  man — that  we 
shall  all  bear  his  memory  in  the  most  precious  part  of  our  hearts,  and  that 
the  world  shall  bow  their  heads  to  it,  as  our  loves  do.  Or  if  this,  again, 
will  trouble  his  spirit,  tell  him  that  we  shall  never  cease  to  remember  and 
love  him ;  and  that.  Christian  or  infidel,  the  most  sceptical  of  us  has  faith 
enough  in  the  high  things  that  nature  puts  into  our  heads,  to  think  all  who 
are  of  one  accord  in  mind  and  heart  are  journeying  to  one  and  the  same 
place,  and  shall  unite  somewhere  or  other  again,  face  to  face,  mutually 
conscious,  mutually  delighted."°^ 

The  literary  relations  of  Keats  and  Hunt  will  be  considered 
under  two  heads ;  first,  the  criticism  of  Keats's  writings  by 
Hunt ;  and  second,  his  direct  influence  upon  them. 

On  first  looking  into  Chapman's  Homer  in  The  Examiner 
of  December  ist,  1816,  was  embodied  in  an  article  entitled 
"  Young  Poets."  It  was  the  first  notice  of  Keats  to  appear  in 
print  and  is  in  part  as  follows : 

"The  last  of  these  young  aspirants  whom  we  have  met  with,  and  who 
promise  to  help  the  new  school  to  revive  Nature  and 

'  To  put  a  spirit  of  youth  in  everthing,' — 

is  we  believe,  the  youngest  of  them  all,  and  just  of  age.  His  name  is  John 
Keats.  He  has  not  yet  published  anything  except  in  a  newspaper,  but  a 
set  of  his  manuscripts  was  handed  us  the  other  day,  and  fairly  surprised  us 
with  the  truth  of  their  ambition,  and  ardent  grappling  with  Nature." 

In  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  his  Contemporaries,  the  last  line 
of  the  same  sonnet — 

"  Silent  upon  a  peak  in  Darien  " — 

is  called  "  a  basis  of  gigantic  tranquillity."^" 

Leigh  Hunt's  review  of  the  Poems  of  1817°°  was  kind  and 
discriminating.  He  writes  characteristically  of  the  first  poem, 
/  stood  tiptoe,  that  it  "  consists  of  a  piece  of  luxury  in  a  rural 
spot " ;  of  the  epistles  and  sonnets,  that  they  "  contain  strong 
evidences  of  warm  and  social  feelings."    This  comment  is  quite 

^^Correspondence,  I,  p.   107. 

"P.  248. 

'^  The  Examiner,  June  ist,  July  6th,  and  13th,  1817. 


49 

characteristic  of  Hunt.  He  was  as  fond  of  finding  "  warm  and 
social  feelings "  in  the  poetry  of  others  as  of  putting  them 
into  his  own.  In  his  anxiety  he  sometimes  found  them  when 
they  did  not  exist.  He  continues :  "  The  best  poem  is  cer- 
tainly the  last  and  the  longest,  entitled  Sleep  and  Poetry.  It 
originated  in  sleeping  in  a  room  adorned  with  busts  and  pic- 
tures [Hunt's  library],  and  is  a  striking  specimen  of  the  rest- 
lessness of  the  young  poetical  appetite,  obtaining  its  food  by 
the  very  desire  of  it,  and  glancing  for  fit  subjects  of  creation 
'  from  earth  to  heaven.'  Nor  do  we  like  it  the  less  for  an 
impatient,  and  as  it  may  be  thought  by  some  irreverend  [sic] 
assault  upon  the  late  French  school  of  criticism*'^  and  monot- 
ony." But  Hunt  did  not  allow  his  affection  for  Keats  or  his 
approval  of  Keats's  poetical  doctrine  to  blunt  his  critical 
acumen.  In  summarizing  he  says :  "  The  very  faults  of  Mr. 
Keats  arise  from  a  passion  for  beauties,  and  a  young  im- 
patience to  vindicate  them ;  and  as  we  have  mentioned  these, 
we  shall  refer  to  them  at  once.  They  may  be  comprised  in 
two ; — first,  a  tendency  to  notice  everything  too  indiscrim- 
inately, and  without  an  eye  to  natural  proportion  and  effect; 
and  second,  a  sense  of  the  proper  variety  of  versification  with- 
out a  due  consideration  of  its  principles."  In  conclusion,  the 
beauties  "  outnumber  the  faults  a  hundred  fold  "  and  "  they 
are  of  a  nature  decidedly  opposed  to  what  is  false  and  inhar- 
monious. Their  characteristics  indeed  are  a  fine  ear,  a  fancy 
and  imagination  at  will,  and  an  intense  feeling  of  external 
beauty  in  its  most  natural  and  least  inexpressible  simplicity." 

Hunt  was  disappointed  with  Endymion  and  did  not  hesitate 
to  say  so.    Keats  writes  to  his  brothers : 

"  Leigh  Hunt  I  showed  my  ist  book  to — he  allows  it  not  much  merit  as  a 
whole;  says  it  is  unnatural  and  made  ten  objections  to  it  in  the  mere 
skimming  over.  He  says  the  conversation  is  unnatural  and  too  high-flown 
for  Brother  and  Sister — says  it  should  be  simple,  forgetting  do  ye  mind  that 
they  are  both  overshadowed  by  a  supernatural  Power,  and  of  force  could 
not  speak  like  Francesca  in  the  Rimini.  He  must  first  prove  that  Caliban's 
poetry  is  unnatural.  This  with  me  completely  overturns  his  objections. 
The  fact  is  he  and  Shelley  are  hurt,  and  perhaps  justly,  at  my  not  having 
showed    them    the    affair    officiously     (sic)  ;    and    from    several    hints    I 

"  Lines  181-206. 


50 

have  had  they  appear  much  disposed  to  dissect  and  anatomize  any  trip 
or  slip  I  may  have  made. — But  who's  afraid?  Aye!  Tom!  Demme  if 
I  am."«2 

Leigh  Hunt  expressed  himself  thus  in  1828:  "  Endymion,  it 
must  be  allowed  was  not  a  little  calculated  to  perplex  the 
critics.  It  was  a  wilderness  of  sweets,  but  it  was  truly  a 
wilderness  ;  a  domain  of  young,  luxuriant,  uncompromising 
poetry."''^ 

La  Belle  Dame  sans  Merci,  which  appeared  first  in  The 
Indicator,^^  was  accompanied  with  an  introduction  by  Hunt, 
who  says  that  it  was  suggested  by  Alain  Chartier's  poem  of 
the  same  title  and  "  that  the  union  of  the  imagination  and 
the  real  is  very  striking  throughout,  particularly  in  the  dream. 
The  wild  gentleness  of  the  rest  of  the  thoughts  and  of  the 
music  are  alike  old,  and  they  are  alike  young."  The  Indicator 
of  August  2  and  9,  1820,  contained  a  review  of  the  volume  of 
1820.  The  part  dealing  with  philosophy  in  poetry  is  of  more 
than  passing  interest: 

"  We  wish  that  for  the  purpose  of  his  story  he  had  not  appeared  to  give 
in  to  the  commonplace  of  supposing  that  Apollonius's  sophistry  must  always 
prevail,  and  that  modern  experiment  has  done  a  deadly  thing  to  poetry  by 
discovering  the  nature  of  the  rainbow,  the  air,  etc. ;  that  is  to  say,  that 
the  knowledge  of  natural  science  and  physics,  by  showing  us  the  nature 
of  things,  does  away  the  imaginations  that  once  adorned  them.  This  is  a 
condescension  to  a  learned  vulgarism,  which  so  excellent  a  poet  as  Mr. 
Keats  ought  not  to  have  made.  The  world  will  always  have  fine  poetry, 
so  long  as  it  has  events,  passions,  affections,  and  a  philosophy  that  sees 
deeper  than  this  philosophy.  There  will  be  a  poetry  of  the  heart,  as 
long  as  there  are  tears  and  smiles :  there  will  be  a  poetry  of  the  imagina- 
tion, as  long  as  the  first  causes  of  things  remain  a  mystery.  A  man  who 
is  no  poet,  may  think  he  is  none,  as  soon  as  he  finds  out  the  first  causes 
of  the  rainbow ;  but  he  need  not  alarm  himself : — he  was  none  before.""' 

Much  the  same  line  of  discussion  is  reported  of  the  con- 
versation at  Haydon's  "  immortal  dinner,"  December  28,  1817, 
when  Keats  and  Lamb  denounced  Sir  Isaac  Newton  and  his 
demolition  of  the  things  of  the  imagination,  Keats  saying  he 

«=  Works,  IV,  p.  64. 

*^  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  his  Contemporaries,  p.  257. 

**  May  10,  1820. 

°°  Cf.  with  Poe's  sonnet.  Science,  true  daiighter  of  Old  Time  thou  art. 


51 

"destroyed  the  poetry  of  the  rainbow  by  reducing  it  to  a 
prism. "^^  The  pictorial  features  of  the  Eve  of  St.  Agnes  were 
particularly  admired  by  Hunt,  as  one  might  be  led  to  expect 
from  the  decorative  detail  of  his  own  narrative  poetry.  The 
portrait  of  "  Agnes  "  {sic  for  Madeline)  is  said  to  be  "  re- 
markable for  its  union  of  extreme  richness  and  good  taste  " 
and  "  affords  a  striking  specimen  of  the  sudden  and  strong 
maturity  of  the  author's  genius.  When  he  wrote  Endymion 
he  could  not  have  resisted  doing  too  much.  To  the  description 
before  me,  it  would  be  a  great  injury  either  to  add  or  to 
diminish.  It  falls  at  once  gorgeously  and  delicately  upon  us, 
like  the  colours  of  the  painted  glass."  Of  the  description  of  the 
casement  window,  Hunt  asks  "  Could  all  the  pomp  and  graces 
of  aristocracy  with  Titian's  and  Raphael's  aid  to  boot,  go  be- 
yond the  rich  religion  of  this  picture,  with  its  '  twilight  saints ' 
and  its  'scutcheons  blushing  with  the  blood  of  queens'?" 
Elsewhere  he  says  that  "  Persian  Kings  would  have  filled  a 
poet's  mouth  with  gold "  for  such  poetry.  Hunt  calls 
Hyperion^''  "  a  fragment,  a  gigantic  one,  like  a  ruin  in  the 
desert,  or  the  bones  of  the  mastodon.  It  is  truly  of  a  piece 
with  its  subject,  which  is  the  downfall  of  the  elder  gods." 
Later,  in  Imagination  and  Fancy,  Hunt  declared  that  Keats's 
greatest  poetry  is  to  be  found  in  Hyperion.  His  opinion  of 
the  whole  is  thus  summed  up : 

"  Mr.  Keats's  versification  sometimes  reminds  us  of  Milton  in  his  blank 
verse,  and  sometimes  of  Chapman  both  in  his  blank  verse  and  in  his 
rhyme ;  but  his  faculties,  essentially  speaking,  though  partaking  of  the 
unearthly  aspirations  and  abstract  yearnings  of  both  these  poets,  are  alto- 
gether his  own.  They  are  ambitious,  but  less  directly  so.  They  are  more 
social,  and  in  the  finer  sense  of  the  word,  sensual,  than  either.  They  are 
more  coloured  by  the  modern  philosophy  of  sympathy  and  natural  justice. 
Endymion,  with  all  its  extraordinary  powers,  partook  of  the  faults  of  youth, 
though  the  best  ones  ;  but  the  reader  of  Hyperion  and  these  other  stories 

^  Haydon,  Life,  Letters  and  Table  Talk,  p.  201. 

^  In  connection  with  Hyperion,  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  manu- 
script in  Keats's  handwriting  recently  discovered,  survived  through  the 
agency  of  Leigh  Hunt.  From  him  it  passed  into  the  ownership  of  his  son 
Thornton,  and  later  to  the  sister  of  Dr.  George  Bird.  It  has  been  pur- 
chased from  her  by  the   British   Museum.     (Athentrum,   March    11,    1905.) 


52 

would  never  guess  that  they  were  written  at  twenty.*"  The  author's  versi- 
fication is  now  perfected,  the  exuberances  of  his  imagination  restrained, 
and  a  calm  power,  the  surest  and  loftiest  of  all  power,  takes  place  of  the 
impatient  workings  of  the  younger  god  within  him.  The  character  of 
his  genius  is  that  of  energy  and  voluptuousness,  each  able  at  will  to  take 
leave  of  the  other,  and  possessing  in  their  union,  a  high  feeling  of  humanity 
not  common  to  the  best  authors  who  can  combine  them.  Mr.  Keats  un- 
doubtedly takes   his   seat  with   the   oldest  and  best  of   our  living  poets."** 

The  more  important  division  of  the  hterary  relations  of  the 
two  men  is  the  direct  influence  of  Hunt's  work  upon  that  of 
Keats. 
J  On  Keats's  prose  style  Hunt's  influence  was  very  slight  and 
can  be  quickly  dismissed.  At  one  time  Keats,  affected  perhaps 
by  Hunt's  example,  thought  of  becoming  a  theatrical  critic. 
He  did  actually  contribute  four  articles  to  The  Champion. 
Keats's  favorite  of  Hunt's  essays,  A  Noiv,  contains  several 
passages  composed  by  Keats.  Mr.  Forman  considers  that 
"  the  greater  part  of  the  paper  is  so  much  in  the  taste  and 
humor  of  Keats  "  that  he  is  justified  in  including  it  in  his  edition 
of  Keats.  He  has  also  called  attention  to  a  passage  in  Keats's 
letter  to  Haydon  of  April  lo,  1818,  which  bears  a  striking  like- 
ness to  Hunt's  occasional  essay  style :  "  The  Hedges  by  this 
time  are  beginning  to  leaf — Cats  are  becoming  more  voci- 
ferous— Young  Ladies  who  wear  Watches  are  always  looking 
at  them.  Women  about  forty-five  think  the  Season  very  back- 
ward." 

The  Poems  of  18 17  show  Hunt's  influences  in  spirit,  diction 
and  versification.  There  are  epistles  and  sonnets  in  the 
manner  of  Hunt.  /  stood  tiptoe  upon  a  little  hill  opens  the 
volume  with  a  motto  from  the  Story  of  Rimini.  The  Specimen 
of  an  Induction  and  Calidore  so  nearly  approach  Hunt's  work 
in  manner,  that  they  might  easily  be  mistaken  for  it.  Sleep 
and  Poetry  attacks  French  models  as  Hunt  had  previously 
done.  The  colloquial  style  of  certain  passages  is  significant  of 
Hunt's  influence  upon  the  poems.    A  few  examples  are : 

^  This  is,  of  course,  a  mistake. 

®' For  other  criticism  of  the  1820  poems  by  Hunt,  see  Lord  Byron  and 
Some  of  his  Contemporaries,  pp.  258-268. 


53 

"  To  peer  about  upon  variety.'"" 

"  Or  by  the  bowery  clefts,  and  leafy  shelves 

Guess  where  the  jaunty  streams  refresh  themselves."" 
"  The    ripples    seem    right    glad    to    reach    those    cresses."" 
"...  you  just  now  are  stooping 

To  pick  up  the  keepsake  intended  for  me."" 
"  Of  this  fair  world,  and  all  its  gentle  livers."" 
"  The  evening  weather  was  so  bright,  and  clear, 

That  men  of  health  aiere  of  unusual  cheer. "'^ 
"  Linger  awhile  upon  some  bending  planks 

That  lean  against  a  streamlet's  rushy  banks. 

And  watch  intently  Nature's  gentle  doings  : 

They  will  be  found  softer  than  the  ring-dove's  cooings.'"* 
"  The  lamps  that  from  the  high  roof'd  wall  were  pendant 

And  gave  the  steel  a  shining  quite  transcendent."  " 
"  Or  on  the  wavy  grass  outstretch'd  supinely, 

Pry  'mong  the  stars,  to  strive  to  think  divinely."  " 

The  following  are  infelicitous  passages  reflecting  Leigh 
Hunt's  bad  taste,  especially  in  the  description  of  physical  ap- 
pearance, or  of  situations  involving  emotion  : 

"...  what  amorous  and  fondling  nips 

They  gave   each    other's   cheeks."" 
"...  some  lady  sweet 

Who  cannot  feel  for  cold  her  tender  feet."*" 
"  Rein  in  the  swelling  of  his  ample  might. "*^ 
"  Nor  will  a  bee  buzz  round  two  swelling  peaches."^ 
"...  What  a  kiss, 

What  gentle  squeeze  he  gave  each  lady's  hand ! 

How   tremblingly  their   delicate   ankles   spann'd ! 

Into  how  sweet  a  trance  his  soul  was  gone. 

While  whisperings  of  affection 

Made  him  delay  to  let  their  tender  feet 

Come  to  the  earth ;  with  an  incline  so  sweet 

"/  stood  tiptoe,  1.  i6. 

"/bid.,  1.  20.  '"■Ibid.,  1.  117. 

'''Ibid.,  1.  81.  "/  stood  tiptoe,  1.  215. 

"To  some  Ladies,  1.  15.  ""^ Ibid.,  1.  61. 

''''  Calidore,  1.  132.     Also  pointed  out  by  Mr.  Colvin,  Keats,  p.  53. 
'*  To  my  brother  George,  1.  7. 
""/  stood  tiptoe,  I.  144. 

*"  Hunt    quotes    this    with    approbation,    as    showing    a    "  human    touch." 
(Specimen  of  an  Induction  to  a  Poem,  11.  13-14.) 
"  Specimen  of  an  Induction  to  a  Poem,  1.  48. 
^  Calidore,  1.  66. 


54 

From  their  low  palfreys  o'er  his  neck  they  bent : 
And  whether  there  were  tears  of  languishment, 
Or  that  the  evening  dew  had  pearl'd  their  tresses, 
He   felt  a  moisture  on  his   cheek  and  blesses 
With   lips   that   tremble,    and  with   glistening  eye, 
All  the  soft  luxury 
That  nestled  in  his  arms."*' 
"...  Add  too,   the   sweetness 
Of  thy  honey'd  voice ;  the  neatness 
Of  thine  ankle,  lightly  turned : 
With  those  beauties,  scarce  discern'd 
Kept  with  such  sweet  privacy. 
That  they  seldom  meet  the  eye 
Of  the  little  loves  that  fly 
Round  about  with  eager  pry."** 

Descriptive  passages  in  the  Huntian  style  are  not  infrequent: 
the  opening  Hnes  from  the  Imitation  of  Spenser^^  are  much 
nearer  to  Hunt  than  to  Spenser. 

"  Now  morning  from  her  orient  chamber  came, 
And  her  first  footsteps  touched  a  verdant  hill, 
Crowning  its  lawny  crest  with  amber  flame, 
Silv'ring  the  untainted  gushes  of  its  rill ; 
Which,  pure  from  mossy  beds,   did  down   distil 
And   after   parting  beds    of   simple   flowers. 
By  many  streams  a  little  lake  did  fill, 
Which  round  its   marge  reflected  woven   bowers, 
And    in    its    middle    space,    a    sky    that    never    lowers."^ 

These  hnes  of  Calidore  show  a  hke  resemblance : 

"  He  bares  his  forehead  to  the  cool  blue  sky. 
And  smiles   at  the   far  clearness   all  around. 
Until  his  heart  is  well  nigh  over  wound, 
And  turns  for  calmness  to  the  pleasant  green 
Of  easy  slopes,  and  shadowy  trees  that  lean 

« Ibid.,  1.  80  flf.  ^To  .  .  .  1.  23  ff. 

**  Mr.  De  Selincourt  in  Notes  and  Queries,  Feb.  4,  1905,  dates  the  Imita- 
tion of  Spenser  "  181 3."  He  does  not  produce  documentary  evidence,  how- 
ever. The  discovery  of  the  hitherto  unpublished  poem,  Fill  for  me  a  brim- 
ming bowl,  in  imitation  of  Milton's  early  poems,  dated  in  the  Woodhouse 
transcript  Aug.  1814,  is  of  considerable  interest  in  determining  the  date  of 
Keats's  earliest  composition  of  verse.  A  sonnet  On  Peace  found  in  the 
same  MS.  is  a  second  discovery  of  an  unpublished  poem  of  the  same  period. 

^  Works,  I,  p.  26. 


55 

So  elegantly  o'er  the  waters'  brim 
And  show  their  blossoms  trim."" 

A  third  is : 

"  Across  the  lawny  fields,  and  pebbly  water." 

Single  phrases  showing  the  influence  of  Hunt^®  are:  " airy- 
feel,"  "  patting  the  flowing  hair,"  "  A  Man  of  elegance," 
"  sweet-lipped  ladies,"  "  grateful  the  incense,"  "  modest  pride," 
"a  sun-beamy  tale  of  a  wreath,"  "soft  humanity,"  "leafy 
luxury,"  "  pillowy  silkiness,"  "  swelling  apples,"  "  the  very 
pleasant  rout,"  "  forms  of  elegance." 

The  following  passages  apparently  bear  as  close  a  resem- 
blance to  each  other  as  it  is  possible  to  find  by  the  comparison 
of  individual  passages  from  the  works  of  the  two  men : 

"  The  sidelong  view  of  swelling  leafiness 
Which  the  glad  setting  sun  in  gold  doth  dress  "** 

compare  with : 

"  And  every  hill,  in  passing  one  by  one 
Gleamed   out   with   twinkles   of  the  golden   sun : 
For  leafy  was  the  road,   with   tall  array.'"" 

The  Epistles  are  strikingly  like  Hunt's  epistles  in  spirit,  dic- 
tion and  metre.  Mr.  Colvin  has  pointed  out  that  the  one  ad- 
dressed To  George  Felton  Mathew  was  written  in  November, 
1815,  before  Keats  had  met  Hunt  and  before  the  publication 
of  the  latter's  epistles;"^  but  Keats  may  have  known  them  at 
the  time  in  manuscript  through  Clarke.  The  resemblances  may 
also  have  been  due,  in  part,  as  in  other  points  of  comparison, 
to  an  innate  similarity  of  thought  and  feeling. 

That  Hunt's  habit  of  sonneteering  and  his  preference  for 
the  Petrarcan  form  influenced  Keats,  is  attested  by  the  simi- 
larity of  the  latter's  sonnets  to  Hunt's  in  form,  subjects,  and 

"Ibid.,  I.  p.  16.  Mr.  .W.  T.  Arnold,  Poetical  Works  of  John  Keats,  Lon- 
don, 1884,  has  remarked  upon  the  similar  use  of  so  by  Hunt  and  Keats.  He 
compares  the  "  so  elegantly "  of  this  passage  with  the  line  from  Rimini 
"  leaves  so  finely  suit." 

**  To  Charles  Cowden  Clarke,  1.  88. 

'*  Calidore,  11.  34-35. 

"^  Story  of  Rimini,  p.  35. 

"Colvin,  Keats,  p.  31. 


66 

allusions,  and  by  the  direct  references'^  to  Hunt.     On   the 

'^References  to  Hunt  in  the  sonnets  and  other  poems  of  1817  are  the 
following : 

1.  "  He  of  the  rose,  the  violet,  the  spring 

The  social  smile,  the  chain  for  Freedom's  sake :" 

(Addressed  to  the  Same  [Haydon].)  This  sonnet  did  not  appear  in  1817, 
although  it  belongs  to  this  period.) 

2.  " .  .  .  thy  tender  care 

Thus  startled  unaware 

Be  jealous  that  the  foot  of  other  wight 

Should   madly   follow   that   bright   path   of   light 

Trac'd  by  thy  lov'd  Libertas ;  he  will  speak. 

And  tell  thee  that  my  prayer  is  very  meek 

Him  thou  wilt  hear." 

{Specimen  of  an  Introduction,  1.  57  ff.)  Mrs.  Clarke  is  the  authority 
that  "  Libertas  "  was  Hunt. 

3.  "  With  him  who  elegantly  chats,  and  talks — 

The  wrong'd  Libertas." 

{Epistle  to  Charles  Cowden  Clarke,  1.  43-44.) 

4.  "  I  turn  full-hearted  to   the  friendly  aids 

That  smooth  the  path  of  honour ;  brotherhood. 
And  friendliness  the  nurse  of  mutual  good. 
The  hearty  grasp  that  sends  a  pleasant  sonnet 
Into  the  brain  ere  one  can  think  upon  it; 
The  silence  when  some  rhymes  are  coming  out ; 
And  when  they're  come,  the  very  pleasant  rout : 
The  message  certain  to  be  done  tomorrow. 
'Tis  perhaps  as  well  that  it  should  be  to  borrow 
Some  precious  book  from  out  its  snug  retreat, 
To  cluster  round  it  when  we  next  shall  meet." 

{Sleep   and  Poetry.) 

Lines  353-404  of  the  same,  nearly  one  fifth  of  the  entire  poem,  are  a 
description  of  Hunt's  library.  Mr.  De  Selincourt  calls  it  "  a  glowing 
tribute  to  the  sympathetic  friendship  which  Keats  had  enjoyed  at  the  Hamp- 
stead  Cottage  and  an  attempt  to  express  in  the  style  of  the  Story  of  Rimini 
something  of  the  spirit  which  had  informed  the  Lines  Written  Above  Tin- 
tern  Abbey."     {Poems  of  John  Keats.     Introduction  p.  34.) 

(a)  Of  this  room  Hunt  wrote :  "  Keats's  Sleep  and  Poetry  is  a  description 
of  a  parlour  that  was  mine,  no  bigger  than  an  old  mansion's  closet." 
Correspondence  I,  p.  289.  See  also  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  his  Contem- 
poraries, p.  249. 


57 

Grasshopper  and  the  Crickef^^  and  To  the  Nile^*  were  written 
in  contest  with  Hunt.  To  Spenser  is  a  refusal  to  comply  with 
Hunt's  request  that  he  should  write  a  sonnet  on  Spenser."^ 
The  title  of  On  Leigh  Hunt's  Poem,  The  Story  of  Riniini^^ 
speaks  for  itself.®'^ 

To  put  it  briefly,  the  Poems  of  1817  show  Hunt's  influence 
in  more  ways  than  any  equal  number  of  the  young  poet's  later 
verses.  It  is  seen  in  Keats's  subject  matter''^  and  allusions;  in  / 
his  adoption  of  a  colloquial  style  and  diction ;  in  his  absorption 
of  Hunt's  spirit  in  the  treatment  of  nature  and  in  his  attitude 
toward  women;  and  in  his  imitation  and  exaggerated  use  of 

(&)  Further  description  of  the  same  room  is  to  be  found  in  Shelley's 
Letter  to  Maria  Gishorne,  11.  212-217. 

(c)  Clarke  refers  to  it  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine,  February,  1874,  and 
in  Recollections  of  Writers,  p.  134.  In  the  letter  he  says  that  a  bed  was 
made  up  in  the  library  for  Keats  and  that  he  was  installed  as  a  member 
of  the  household.  Here  he  composed  the  framework  of  the  poem.  Lines 
325-404  are  "  an  inventory  of  the  art  garniture  of  the  room." 

{d)  The  most  intresting  record  in  regard  to  the  room  is  that  given  by 
Mrs.  J.  T.  Fields  in  a  Shelf  of  old  Books,  who  says  that  her  husband  saw 
the  library  treasures  which  had  inspired  Keats — Greek  casts  of  Sappho, 
casts  of  Kosciusko  and  Alfred,  with  engravings,  sketches  and  well-worn 
books.  Among  the  books  collected  by  Mr.  Fields  was  a  copy  of  Shelley, 
Coleridge  and  Keats  bound  together,  with  an  autograph  of  all  three  men, 
formerly  owned  by  Hunt.  The  fly  leaf  "  at  the  back  contained  the  son- 
net written  by  Keats  on  the  Story  of  Rimini." 

*' The  two  sonnets  were  published  in  The  Examiner  of  September  21, 
1817;  Keats's  had  been  included  previously  in  the  Poems  of  1817 ;  Hunt's 
appeared  later  in  Foliage,  181 8. 

°*  This  did  not  appear  in  1817,  but  belongs  to  this  period.  See  Works,  II, 
p.  257.  For  a  comparison  of  these  two  sonnets  with  Shelley's  on  the  same 
Subject,  see  Rossetti's  Life  of  Keats,  p.   no. 

^  Works,  II,  p.  166. 

^  Compare  with  A  Dream,  after  Reading  Dante's  Episode  of  Paolo  and 
Francesca,  1819.     {Works,  III,  p.  16.) 

"  A  pocket-book  given  Keats  by  Hunt  and  containing  many  of  the  first 
drafts  of  the  sonnets  belonged  to  Charles  Wentworth  Dilke.  It  is  still 
in  the  possession  of  the  Dilke  family. 

°*  For  instances  of  Keats's  interest  in  politics,  see  To  Kosciusko,  To  Hope, 
!!•  33-36,  and  scattered  references  to  Wallace,  William  Tell  and  similar 
characters.  Most  of  these  references  have  already  been  called  attention  to 
by  others. 


58 

the  free  heroic  couplet  in  Sleep  and  Poetry,  I  stood  tiptoe, 
Specimen  of  an  Induction  and  other  poems. 

Of  the  poem  Lines  on  seeing  a  Lock  of  Milton's  Hair, 
written  in  January,  i8i8,  Keats  wrote  in  a  letter  to  Bailey: 
"  I  was  at  Hunt's  the  other  day,  and  he  surprised  me  with  a 
real  authenticated  lock  of  Milton's  hair.  I  know  you  would 
like  what  I  wrote  thereon,  so  here  it  is — as  they  say  of  a 
Sheep  in  a  Nursery  Book  .  .  .  This  I  did  at  Hunt's,  at  his 
request — perhaps  I  should  have  done  something  better  alone 
and  at  home."''®  Leigh  Hunt's  three  sonnets  on  the  same 
subject,  published  in  Foliage,  have  been  already  spoken  of  in 
the  preceding  chapter. 

Endymion  shows  a  decided  decrease  in  the  ascendancy  of 
Hunt's  mind  over  Keats,  for  the  sway  of  his  intellectual 
supremacy  had  been  shaken  before  suspicions  arose  in  Keats's 
mind  as  to  the  disinterestedness  of  his  motives.  What  influ- 
ence lingers  is  seen  in  the  general  theory  of  versification  and  in 
the  diction,  with  some  trace  in  matters  of  taste.  A  marvellous 
luxury  of  imagery,  glimpses  into  the  heights  and  depths  of 
nature,  an  absorbing  love  of  Greek  fable,  a  deeper  infusion  of 
the  ideal  have  superseded  what  Mr.  Colvin  has  called  the 
"  sentimental  chirp "  of  Hunt.^"''  Specific  passages  in  En- 
dymion reminiscent  of  Hunt  are  rare,  but  Book  HI,  11.  23-30 
recalls  the  general  descriptive  style  in  the  Descent  of  Liberty 
and  summarizes  in  a  few  lines  pages  of  Hunt's  diffuse,  spec- 
tacular imagery.  Once  or  twice  Keats  seems  to  have  fallen 
into  the  colloquial  manner  in  dialogue : 

"  But  a  poor  Naiad,  I  guess  not.     Farewell ! 
I  have  a  ditty  for  my  hollow  cell."^"^ 

Again : 

"  I   own 
This  may  sound  strangely :  but  when,  dearest  girl, 
Thou  seest  it  for  my  happiness,  no  pearl 
Will  trespass  down  those  cheeks.     Companion  fair ! 
Wilt  be  content  to  dwell  with  her,  to  share 
This  sister's  love  with  me?     Like  one  resign'd 
And  bent  by  circumstance,  and  thereby  blind 

"  Works,  IV,  pp.  60-61.     The  poem  follows. 

""Colvin,  Keats,  p.  107.  ^"^  Endymion,  Bk.  II,  11.   129-130. 


59 

In   self-commitment,   thus   that   meek  unknown : 
'  Aye,  but  a  buzzing  by  my   ears   has  flown. 
Of  jubilee  to  Dian : — truth  I  heard? 
Well  then,  I  see  there  is  no  little  bird.'  """ 

Occasionally  there  are  passages  in  the  bad  taste  of  Hunt,  as 
this  example: 

"  Enchantress !  tell  me  by  this  soft  embrace. 
By  the  most  soft  completion  of  thy  face, 
Those  lips,  O  slippery  blisses,  twinkling  eyes, 
And  by  these  tenderest,  milky  sovereignties — 
These  tenderest,  and  by  the  nectar  wine. 
The  passion — ""^ 

Likewise : 

"  O  that  I 
Were  rippling  round  her  dainty  fairness  now. 
Circling  about  her  waist,  and  striving  how 
To  entice  her  to  a  dive !  then  stealing  in 
Between  her  luscious  lips  and  eyelids  thin."*"** 

In  July,  1820,  appeared  the  volume  Lamia,  Isabella,  The  Eve 
of  St.  Agnes  and  other  Poems.  The  lingering  influence  of  Hunt 
is  seen  in  a  fondness  for  the  short  poetic  tale,  in  the  direct 
and  simple  narrative  style,  and  in  the  return  in  Lamia  to  the 
use  of  the  heroic  couplet ;  but  that,  along  with  the  other  poems 
of  the  volume,  is  free  from  the  Huntian  eccentricities  of  man- 
ner and  diction  found  in  Keats's  earlier  works.  He  had  come 
into  his  own.  In  treatment.  Lamia  is  almost  faultless  in 
technique  and  in  matters  of  taste;  although  Mr.  Colvin  has 
pointed  out  as  an  exception  the  first  fifteen  lines  of  the  second 
book,  which  he  says  have  Leigh  Hunt's  "  affected  ease  and 
fireside  triviality."^"^  One  of  the  few  occurrences  of  Hunt's 
manner  is  seen  in  the  Eve  of  St.  Agnes. 

"  Paining  with  eloquence  her  balmy  side.'""* 

The  famous  passage  in  the  Eve  of  St.  Agnes  describing  all 
manner  of  luscious  edibles  is  very  suggestive  of  one  in  Hunt's 
Bacchus  and  Ariadne  which  enumerates  articles  of  the  same 

"'/&i(f.,  Bk.  IV,  1.  863  ff. 

'"'Ibid.,  Bk.  II,  1.  756  ff.  '"'Keats,  p.  169. 

»'"  Ibid.,  Bk.  II,  1.  938  ff.  """  Stanza  23,  1.  7. 


60 

kind."^     It  is  in  this  latter  poem  and  in  the  Story  of  Rimini 
that  Hunt's  power  of  description  most  nearly  approximates  to 

-  that  of  Keats.  In  1831,  in  the  Gentle  Armour,  Hunt  is  the 
imitator  of  Keats,  as  Mr.  Colvin  has  already  pointed  out.^''® 

The  peculiarities  of  Keats's  diction  are,  in  the  main,  two- 
fold, and  may  each  be  traced  to  a  direct  influence:  first, 
archaisms  in  the  manner  of  Spenser^°^  and  Chatterton ;  second, 
colloquialisms  and  deliberate  departures  from  established 
usage  in  the  employment  and  formation  of  words,  in  imitation 
of  Leigh  Hunt.  Keats's  theory  so  far  as  he  had  one,  is  set 
forth  in  a  passage  in  one  of  his  letters :  "  I  shall  never  become 
attached  to  a  foreign  idiom,  so  as  to  put  it  into  my  writings. 
The  Paradise  Lost,  though  so  line  in  itself,  is  a  corruption 
of  our  language.  It  should  be  kept  as  it  is,  unique,  a  curiosity, 
a  beautiful  and  grand  curosity,  the  most  remarkable  produc- 
tion of  the  world;  a  northern  dialect  accommodating  itself  to 
Greek  and  Latin  inversions  and  intonations.  The  purest 
English,  I  think — or  what  ought  to  be  the  purest — is  Chat- 
terton's.""" 

Keats's  Poems  of  18 17  show  Hunt's  influence  in  diction  more 
strongly  than  any  of  his  later  works.  In  the  majority  of  instan- 
ces, this  influence  is  reflected  in  the  principles  of  usage  rather 

y  than  in  the  actual  usages,  although  words  and  phrases  used  by 
Hunt  are  occasionally  found  in  the  writings  of  Keats.  The 
tendency  to  a  colloquial  vocabulary  is  seen  in  such  words  and 
combinations  as  jaunty,  right  glad,  balmy  pain,  leafy  luxury/" 

^"''Hero  and  Leander  and  Bacchus  and  Ariadne,  1819,  p.  45. 

^°*  Mr.  W.  T.  Arnold  makes  the  mistake  of  thinking  that  Keats  imitated 
Hunt's  Gentle  Armour.  Mr.  Colvin  corrects  this  statement.  {Keats, 
Poetical  Works,  p.   59.) 

"»  (a)  W.  T.  Arnold,  Keats,  Poetical  Works,  p.  128.  (&)  J.  Hoops,  Keats's 
Jungend  und  Jugendgedichte,  Englische  Studien,  XXI,  239.  (c)  W.  A. 
Read,  Keats  and  Spenser. 

^'">  Works,  V,  p.  121. 

^^' This  same  expression  occurs  in  Hero  and  Leander,  1819,  in  the  phrase, 
"  Half  set  in  trees  and  leafy  luxury."  Keats's  dedication  sonnet  in  which  it 
occurs  was  written  in  181 7.  Therefore  Mr.  W.  T.  Arnold  makes  a  mistake 
when  he  says  (in  his  edition  of  Keats,  p.  129)  it  was  taken  direct  from 
Hunt's  poem,  although  the  two  separate  words  are  among  his  favorites  and 
Keats  probably  took  them  from  him  and  combined  them. 


61 

deHcious/^2  tasteful,  gentle  doings,  gentle  livers,  soft  floatings, 
frisky  leaps,  lawny  mantle,  patting,  busy  spirits.  Among  these 
words,  leafy,  balmy,  lawny,  patting,  nest,  tiptoe,  and  varia- 
tions of  "  taste  "  were  special  favorites  with  Hunt.  A  few 
expressions  only  of  this  kind,  as  "nest,"  "honey  feel,"  "in- 
fant's gums,"  are  found  in  Endymion,  and  almost  none  at  all 
in  the  later  poems. 

Keats  used  peculiar  words  with  so  much  greater  felicity 
and  in  so  much  greater  profusion  than  Hunt,  exceeding  in 
richness  and  individuality  of  vocabulary  most  of  the  poets  of 
his  own  time,  that  one  is  forced  to  believe  that  Spenser's  in- 
fluence rather  than  Hunt's  was  dominant  here.  Breaches  of 
taste  are  confined  almost  entirely  to  the  Poems  of  1817. 

Ordinary  words  used  peculiarly  include  "nips"  (they  gave 
each  other's  cheeks),  "  core  "  (for  heart)  and  "  luxury  "^^^  (with 
a  wrong  connotation),  nouns  and  adjectives  employed  as  verbs, 
and  verbs  as  nouns  and  adjectives.  These  devices  likewise 
cannot  be  credited  to  Hunt  without  reservation,  since  both 
Spenser  and  IMilton  used  them ;  but  there  is  little  doubt  that 
in  this  instance  Hunt  was  an  inciting  and  sustaining  influence. 
Keats  resorted  to  such  artifices  frequently  and  continued  to  do 
so  to  the  end.  Instances  of  nouns  and  adjectives  employed  as 
verbs  are :  pennanc'd,  luting,  passion'd,  neighbour'd,  syllabling, 
companion'd,  labrynth,  anguish'd,  poesied,  vineyard'd,  woof'd, 
loaned,  medicin'd,  zon'd,  mesh,  pleasure,  legion'd,  companion, 
green'd,  gordian'd,  character'd,  finn'd,  forest'd,  tusk'd,  monitor. 
Verbs  employed  as  nouns  and  adjectives  are:  shine,  which  oc- 
curs five  times,  feel,  seeing,  hush,  pry  and  amaze. 

*"  Mr.  Arnold  says  "  delicious  "  is  used  sixteen  times  by  Keats.  (Keats, 
Poetical  Works,  p.  129).  He  quotes  a  passage  from  one  of  Hunt's  prefaces 
in  which  the  latter  comments  on  Chaucer's  use  of  the  word :  "  The  word 
deliciously  is  a  venture  of  animal  spirits  which  in  a  modern  writer  some 
critics  would  pronounce  to  be  too  affected  or  too  familiar;  but  the  enjoy- 
ment, and  even  incidental  appropriateness  and  relish  of  it,  will  be  obvious 
to  finer  senses."  In  Rimini  this  line  occurs:  "Distils  the  next  note  more 
deliciously." 

"' Palgrave,  Poetical  Works  of  John  Keats,  p.  261,  notices  Leigh  Hunt's 
misuse  of  this  word  in  his  review  of  /  stood  tiptoe,  quoted  on  p.  107. 
See  his  use  of  the  same  on  p.  76.  In  Bacchus  and  Ariadne  it  occurs  in  this 
passage  "  all  luxuries  that  come  from  odorous  gardens." 


62 

More  examples  of  coined  compounds,  nouns  and  adjectives, 
are  to  be  found  in  Keats  than  in  Hunt;  in  his  better  work 
as  well  as  in  his  early  productions.  A  few  are:  cirque- 
couchant,  milder-mooned,  tress-lifting,  flitter-winged,  silk- 
pillowed,  death-neighing,  break-covert,  palsy-twitching,  high- 
sorrowful,  sea-foamy,  amber-fretted,  sweet-lipped,  lush- 
leaved. 

The  last  principle  is  the  coining,  or  choice  of,  adjectives  in  y 
and  ing;  of  adverbs  in  ly,  when,  in  many  instances,  adjectives 
and  adverbs  already  existed  formed  on  the  same  stem.  The 
frequent  use  of  words  with  these  weak  endings  gives  a  very 
diffuse  effect  at  times  in  Keats's  early  poems.  The  following 
are  examples :  fenny,  fledgy,  rushy,  lawny,  liny,  nervy,  pipy, 
paly,  palmy,  towery,  sluicy,  surgy,  scummy,  mealy,  sparry, 
heathy,  rooty,  slumbery,  bowery,  bloomy,  boundly,  palmy, 
surgy,  spermy,  ripply,  spangly,  spherey,  orby,  oozy,  skeyey, 
clayey,  and  plashy.^^*  Adjectives  in  ing  are :  cheering,  hushing, 
breeding,  combing,  dumpling,  sphering,  tenting,  toying,  baaing, 
far-spooming,  peering  (hand),  searing  (hand),  shelving,  ser- 
penting.  Adverbs  are  :  scantly,  elegantly,  refreshingly,  freshen- 
ing (lave),  hoveringly,  greyly,  cooingly,  silverly,  refreshfully, 
whitely,  drowningly,  wingedly,  sighingly,  windingly,  bearingly. 

These  statements  are  not  very  conclusive  proof  of  the 
frequent  occurrences  of  the  same  words  in  the  poems  of  the 
two  men.  They  are  questionable  even  in  regard  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  usage  themselves,  since  poets  of  the  same  period  or 
young  poets  may  possess  the  same  tendencies.  Yet  in  the 
light  of  their  relations  already  discussed  the  similarity  of  a 
number  of  principles  seems  convincing  proof  that  Hunt  in- 
fluenced Keats  considerably  in  the  principles  of  diction  in  his 
first  volume  and  occasionally  in  the  selection  of  individual 
words;  and  that  Keats  never  entirely  freed  himself  from  some 
of  Hunt's  peculiarities.  Shelley,  in  writing  of  Hyperion  to 
Mrs.  Hunt,  spoke  of  the  "  bad  sort  of  style  which  is  becoming 
fashionable  among  those  who   fancy  that  they  are  imitating 

"*  This  is  used  in  Hyperion,  II,  1.  45.  The  expression  "  plashy  pools" 
occurs  in  the  Story  of  Rimini, 


63 

Hunt  and  Wordsworth.""^  Medwin  reported  Shelley  as  say- 
ing "We  are  certainly  indebted  to  the  Lakists  for  a  more 
simple  and  natural  phraseology ;  but  the  school  that  has  sprung 
out  of  it,  have  spawned  a  set  of  words  neither  Chaucerian 
nor  Spencerian  (sic),  words  such  as  '  gib,'  and  '  flush,'  '  whif- 
fling/ '  perking  up,'  '  swirling,'  '  lightsome  and  brightsome ' 
and  hundreds  of  others.""*^ 

Keats,  following  the  lead  of  Hunt,  used  the  free  heroic 
couplet  in  several  of  the  1817  poems  with  a  license  even 
greater  than  Hunt's.  In  Endymion  he  indulged  in  further 
vagaries  of  rhythm  and  metre  that  Hunt  never  dreamed  of  and 
in  fact  greatly  disapproved  of.  Hunt  said  that  "  Endymion  had 
no  versification.""'  In  its  want  of  couplet  and  line  units,  this 
is  not  very  far  from  the  truth.  Writing  of  it  again  in  1828, 
he  says :  "  The  great  fault  of  Endymion  next  to  its  unpruned 
luxuriance,  (or  before  it,  rather,  for  it  was  not  a  fault  on  the 
right  side,)  was  the  wilfulness  of  its  rhymes.  The  author 
had  a  just  contempt  for  the  monotonous  termination  of  every- 
day  couplets;  he  broke  up  his  lines  in  order  to  distribute  the 
rhyme  properly;  but  going  only  upon  the  ground  of  his  con- 
tempt, and  not  having  settled  with  himself  any  principles  of 
versification,  the  very  exuberance  of  his  ideas  led  him  to 
make  use  of  the  first  rhymes  that  offered;  so  that,  by  a  new 
meeting  of  effects,  the  extreme  was  artificial,  and  much  more 
obtrusive  than  the  one  under  the  old  system.  Dryden  modestly 
thought,  that  a  rhyme  had  often  helped  him  to  a  thought.  Mr. 
Keats  in  the  tyranny  of  his  wealth,  forced  his  rhymes  to  help 
him,  whether  they  would  or  not;  and  they  obeyed  him,  in  the 
most  singular  manner,  with  equal  promptitude  and  ungain- 
liness.""®  Endymion  has  been  thought  by  some  critics,  to 
have  been  written  under  the  metrical  influence  of  Chamber- 
layne's  Pharronida.  In  the  number  of  run-on  lines  and  cou- 
plets— a  scheme  nearer  blank  verse  than  the  couplet — there  is 
certainly  a  striking  correspondence.     Mr.  Forman  thinks  that 

^^°  November   11,   1820. 

""  Life  of  Percy  Bysshe  Shelly,  II,  p.  36. 

"''Imagination  and  Fancy,  p.  231. 

"^  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  Llis  Contemporaries,  pp.  252-3. 


64 

Keats  knew  the  poem,  Mr.  Colvin  and  Mr.  De  Selincourt 
can  see  no  real  likeness.  There  is  no  proof  as  yet  discovered 
that  Keats  ever  heard  of  it. 

In  Lamia,  after  the  extreme  reaction  in  Endymion,  Keats 
approached  nearer  to  the  classic  form  of  the  couplet  used  by 
Dryden,  but  still  with  greater  freedom  in  structure  than  ap- 
pears in  either  Dryden  or  Hunt.  From  the  evidence  of  Brown 
it  is  probable  that  Keats  imitated  Dryden  directly  and  not 
through  the  medium  of  Hunt's  work,  but  it  is  very  likely  that 
Hunt  directed  him  there  in  the  first  instance  for  a  model.  Mr. 
Palgrave  says  of  the  metre  of  Lamia  that  Keats  "admirably 
found  and  sustained  the  balance  between  a  blank  verse  treat- 
ment of  the  '  Heroic '  and  the  epigrammatic  form  carried  to 
such  perfection  by  Pope."^^'^  Leigh  Hunt  said  that  "  the  lines 
seem  to  take  pleasure  in  the  progress  of  their  own  beauty  like 
sea  nymphs  luxuriating  through  the  water."^^*' 

In  conclusion,  Keats's  early  and  late  employment  of  the 
couplet  was  marked  always  by  greater  freedom  in  the  use  of 
run-on  couplets  and  lines,  and  in  the  handling  of  the  caesura 
than  Dryden's  or  Hunt's ;  he  was  at  first  slower  than  Hunt  to 
employ  the  triplet  and  the  Alexandrine,  but  he  later  adopted 
them  in  a  larger  measure ;  and  he  introduced  the  run-on  para- 
graph and  the  hemistich  independently  of  Hunt. 

"•  Palgrave,  Poetical  Works  of  John  Keats,  p.  274. 
'^"Poetical  Works,   1832,  p.  36. 


CHAPTER   III 

*  Shelley 

Finnerty  Case — Correspondence  of  Hunt  and  Shelley — Their  Political 
and  Religious  Sympathy — Hunt's  Defense  of  Shelley — Hunt's  Italian 
Journey — Shelley's  Death — Hunt's  Criticism — Literary  Influence — Shelley's 
Estimate  of  Hunt. 

The  friendship  of  Shelley  and  Leigh  Hunt  is  the  simple  story 
of  an  intimacy  founded  on  a  common  endowment  of  indepen- 
dence of  thought  and  of  capacity  for  self-sacrifice.  Although 
both  were  sensitive  and  shrinking  by  nature,  and  preferred  to 
dwell  in  an  isolated  world  of  books  and  dreams,  yet  for  the 
sake  of  abstract  principles  and  for  love  of  humanity,  both 
expended  much  time  and  endured  much  pain  in  the  arena  of 
public  strife. 

In  The  Examiners  of  February  i8  and  24,  181 1,  appeared 
articles  by  Hunt  on  the  Finnerty  case.  Peter  Finnerty,  Hunt's 
successor  as  editor  of  The  Statesman,  had  been  prosecuted  and 
imprisoned  on  the  charge  of  libelling  Lord  Castlereagh.  Hunt's 
defense  drew  Shelley's  attention  to  the  case  and  may  have 
inspired  him,  it  has  been  suggested,  to  write  his  Political  Essay 
on  the  Existing  State  of  Things.  The  proceeds  went  to  Fin- 
nerty.^ On  March  2  Shelley  subscribed  to  the  Finnerty  fund 
and,  on  the  same  day,  wrote  Hunt,  whom  he  had  never  met,  a 
letter  from  Oxford,  congratulating  him  on  his  acquittal  from 
a  third  charge  of  libel  and  proposing  that  an  association  should 
be  formed  to  establish  "  rational  liberty,"  to  resist  the  enemies 
of  justice,  and  to  protect  each  other.- 

*  The  poem  is  reported  to  have  brought  £ioo,  more  than  any  poem 
sold  during  his  lifetime.     It  is  now  lost. 

-  Mac-Carthay,  who  has  fully  treated  this  incident,  thinks  that  the 
account  Hunt  gave  of  the  matter  many  years  later  is  so  incoherent  as  to 
indicate  that  he  did  not  receive  the  letter  until  after  he  met  Shelley,  or  per- 
haps not  at  all.  He  also  points  out  that  two  passages  in  the  letter  to  Hunt 
of  March  2,  181 1,  important  in  their  bearing  upon  Shelley's  political  theories 

65 


66 

Shelley's  political  creed  was,  in  the  main,  that  of  William 
Godwin,  with  an  admixture  of  Holbach,  Volney  and  Rousseau 
at  first  hand.^  In  English  philosophic  literature  he  knew 
Berkeley,  Hume,  Reid  and  Locke.  His  watchword  was  the 
cry  of  the  French  Revolution,  liberty,  equality  and  fraternity, 
to  be  gained,  not  by  violence  and  bloodshed,  but  by  a  steady 
and  unyielding  resistance  of  the  masses  against  the  corrupt 
institutions  of  church  and  state.  Like  Godwin,  he  believed 
man  capable  of  his  own  redemption  and,  with  tradition  and 
tyranny  overthrown  and  reason  and  nature  enthroned,  he 
hoped  for  universal  justice  and  ultimate  perfectibility  of  man- 
kind. His  poetry  and  his  prose  represent  a  development  from 
the  impassioned  and  imaginative  enthusiasm  of  an  uncompro- 
mising youth,  who  would  single-handed  revolutionize  the  world 
in  the  twinkhng  of  an  eye,  to  the  saner  hope  of  a  man  who 
took  somewhat  into  account  the  necessarily  gradual  nature  of 
ethical  evolution.  His  chief  fallacy  lay  in  the  failure  to  recog- 
nize evil  as  an  inherent  force  in  human  nature  and  to  acknowl- 
edge sect  and  state,  to  which  he  attributed  the  origin  of  all 
error,  as  inventions  of  man's  ingenuity.  Neither  did  he  per- 
ceive the  necessity  of  certain  restrictions  on  the  individual  for 
the  preservation  of  law  and  order.  He  believed  in  no  distinc- 
tions of  rank  except  those  based  on  individual  talent  and  virtue. 
He  wrote  in  1811 :  "  I  am  no  aristocrat,  nor  '  crat'  at  all,  but 
vehemently  long  for  the  time  when  men  may  dare  to  live  in  ac- 
cordance with  Nature  and  Reason — in  consequence  with  Virtue, 
to  which  I  firmly  believe  that  Religion  and  its  establishments, 
Polity  and  its  establishments,  are  the  formidable  though  de- 
structible barriers."*  Shelley  knew  of  Leigh  Hunt  first  as  a 
political  writer  of  considerable  importance.  In  this  respect  he 
never  ceased  to  admire  him  or  to  be  influenced  by  The  Exam- 
iner in  the  campaign  against  government  corruption.  Yet  his 
y  own  equipment  of  mind  and  training,  visionary  as  his  theories 
seem,  gave  him  a  power  of  speculation  and  grasp  of  situation 

at  this  time,  are  identical  with  passages  in  a  letter  of  February  22  of  the 
same  year,  addressed  to  the  editor  of  The  Statesman,  presumably  Finnerty. 
(Shelley's  Early  Life,  pp.  1-106.) 

^  Hancock,  The  French  Revolution  and  English  Poets,  pp.  So-77. 

*  Letter  to  Miss  Kitchener,  June  25,  181 1. 


67 

that  ignored  the  Hmitations  of  time  and  space,  while  Hunt,  with 
his  narrower  view,  never  got  beyond  the  petty  and  immediate 
details  of  one  nation  or  of  one  age. 

The  social  improvements  which  Shelley  advocated  were 
Catholic  Emancipation,  brought  about  later,  as  has  been  pointed 
out  by  Symonds,  by  the  very  means  which  Shelley  foresaw  and 
prophesied;  reform  of  parliamentary  representation'*  similar  to 
that  carried  into  effect  in  1832,  1867  and  1882;  freedom  of  the 
press^  and  repeal  of  the  union  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland; 
the  abolition  of  capital  punishment  and  of  war.'^  During  the 
fourteen  years  of  Hunt's  editorship,  among  the  reforms  for 
which  he  fought  in  The  Examiner  were  the  first  three  of  these 
measures.  He  denounced  capital  punishment  and  war  in  the 
same  paper  and  later  in  his  poem  Captain  Sword  and  Captain 
Pen} 

Shelley's  moral  code  was  based  on  an  idealized  sense  of  jus- 
tice, and  was  a  kind  of  "  natural  piety."^  With  one  marked 
exception,  he  seems  to  have  been  true  to  the  pursuit  of  it,  both 
in  his  standards  of  conduct  and  in  his  relations  with  others. 
His  life  was  a  model  of  generosity,  purity  of  thought,  and 
unselfish  devotion.  Hunt  reported  Shelley  as  having  said: 
"  What  a  divine  religion  might  be  found  out,  if  charity  were 
really  the  principle  of  it,  instead  of  faith. "^°  He  was  atheist 
only  in  the  sense  of  discarding  the  dogmas  of  theology  and 
of  superstition,  and  in  his  spirit  of  scientific  inquiry.  He 
did  not  deny  the  existence  in  nature  of  an  all-pervading  spirit. 
Hunt  thought  the  popular  misconception  of  Shelley's  opinions 
was  due  to  his  misapplication  of  the  names  of  the  Deity  and  to 
his  identification  of  them  with  vulgar  superstitions.  Of  Shel- 
ley's attitude  he  wrote :  "  His  want  of  faith  in  the  letter,  and 
his  exceeding  faith  in  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  formed  a  com- 
ment, the  one  on  the  other,  very   formidable  to  those  who 

°  G.   B.   Smith,   Shelley,  A    Critical  Biography,  p,   88. 
"  See  the  Letter  to  Lord  Ellenborough. 
'Smith,   Shelley,  A    Critical   Biography,   p.    no. 

'  For  Shelley's  opinion  on  the  coincidence  of  their  political  views,   see 
the  last  paragraph  of  the  dedication  of  The  Ccnci. 
°  Hunt,  Autobiography,  II,  p.  103. 
^'' Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries,  p.  176. 


1/ 


68 

chose  to  forget  what  Scripture  itself  observes  on  that  point. "^^ 
Whether  or  not  Shelly  believed  in  immortality  is  still  a  vexed 
question  and  is  likely  to  remain  so,  since  he  had  not  reached 
convictions  sufficiently  stable  to  permit  a  formal  statement 
on  his  part.  Many  of  the  passages  in  Adonais  would  lead 
one  to  believe  that  he  did ;  certainly  he  did,  like  Hunt,  cling 
to  the  idea  of  the  persistence,  in  some  form  or  other,  of 
the  good  and  the  beautiful.  The  close  conformity  of  their 
views  is  seen  in  the  latter's  two  sonnets  in  Foliage'^-  addressed 
to  Shelley,  where  the  poet  condemns  the  degrading  notions  so 
prevalent  concerning  the  Deity  and  celebrates  the  Spirit  of 
Beauty  and  Goodness  in  all  things.  But,  in  religion  as  in  poli- 
tics, Shelley  was  bolder  and  more  speculative  than  Hunt. 

The  fine  of  ii,ooo  and  imprisonment  of  the  Hunt  brothers 
in  1 8 13  drew  from  Shelley  a  vehement  protest.  In  a  letter  to 
Hogg^^  he  lamented  the  inadequacy  of  Lord  Brougham's  de- 
fense and  fairly  boiled  with  indignation  at  "  the  horrible  injus- 
tice and  tyranny  of  the  sentence  "  and  pronounced  Hunt  "  a 
brave,  a  good,  and  an  enlightened  man."  He  started  a  sub- 
scription with  twenty  pounds,  and  later  he  must  have  offered 
to  pay  the  entire  fine,  for  Hunt  recorded  in  his  Autobiography 
that  Shelley  had  made  him  "  a  princely  offer,"^*  which  he 
declined,  as  he  did  not  need  it.  The  offer  was  actuated  solely 
by  a  hatred  of  oppression,  for  the  two  men  had  little  or  no 
personal  knowledge  of  each  other  at  the  time. 

It  is  impossible  to  decide  the  exact  date  of  their  first  meet- 
ing. Hunt  says  that  it  took  place  before  the  indictment  for 
libel  on  the  Prince  Regent.^"  This  evidence  would  make  it  fall 
sometime  between  March,  1812,  the  date  of  Shelley's  letter 
mentioned  above,  and  February,  1813,  the  beginning  of  the 
incarceration.  But  a  letter  from  Shelley  to  Hunt  dated  De- 
cember 7,  1813,  demanding  if  he  had  made  the  statement  that 
Milton  had  died  an  atheist,  from  its  very  formal  tone,  leads 
one  to  believe  that  they  had  not  met  up  to  that  time  and  that 
Hunt,  writing  from  memory  many  years  afterwards,  made  a 

^Autobiography,  II,  p.  36. 

"^  Pp.  122,  123.  "II,  p.   13. 

^"December  27,  1812.  ^^Autobiography,  II,  p.  27. 


69 

mistake.  Thornton  Hunt  gives  as  the  immediate  cause  of  the 
two  men  coming  together,  Shelley's  application  to  Mr.  Rowland 
Hunter,  the  publisher  and  stepfather  of  Mrs.  Hunt,  for  advice 
regarding  the  publication  of  a  poem.  He  referred  Shelley  to 
Leigh  Hunt.  The  next  meeting  was  in  Surrey  Street  Gaol. 
Thornton  Hunt,  in  a  delightful  reminiscence  of  Shelley,^®  says 
that  he  had  no  recollection  of  him  among  his  father's  visitors 
in  prison,  but  he  remembered  perfectly  the  latter's  description 
of  his  "  angelic "  appearance,  his  classic  thoughts,  and  his 
dreams  for  the  emancipation  of  mankind.  The  real  intimacy 
began  after  Shelley's  return  from  the  continent  in  1816  when 
Shelley,  in  search  of  a  house  before  he  settled  at  Mario w,  was 
the  guest  of  Hunt  at  Hampstead  during  a  part  of  December.^'' 
A  close  companionship  followed  uninterruptedly  for  two  years 
until  Shelley  went  to  Italy,  and  there  are  recorded  in  the  letters 
and  journals  of  each  many  pleasant  evenings  at  Hampstead 
and  at  Marlow,  filled  with  poetry  and  music,  with  talks  on  art 
and  trials  of  wit,  with  dinners  and  theater  parties.  Mary 
Shelley  and  Mrs.  Hunt  became  as  great  friends  as  their 
husbands. 

'JkVhen  Harriet  committed  suicide  and  Shelley  went  up  to 
London  to  institute  proceedings  for  possession  of  their  chil- 
dren. Hunt  remained  constantly  with  him  and  gave  him  as 
much  sympathy  and  support  as  it  is  possible  for  one  fellow- 
being  to  extend  to  another  whom  all  the  world  has  deserted.^* 
He  attended  the  Chancery  suit  and  stated  Shelley's  position  in 

^'^  Atlantic  Monthly,  February,  1863. 

"December  8,  1816,  Shelley  wrote  to  Hunt:  "I  have  not  in  all  my 
intercourse  with  mankind  experienced  sympathy  and  kindness  with  which 
I  have  been  so  affected,  or  which  my  whole  being  has  so  sprung  forward 
to  meet  and  to  return.  .  .  .  With  you,  and  perhaps  some  others  (though 
in  a  less  degree,  I  fear)  my  gentleness  and  sincerity  find  favour,  because 
they  are  themselves  gentle  and  sincere :  they  believe  in  self-devotion  and 
generosity  because  they  are  themselves  generous  and  self-devoted." 
(Nicoll  and  Wise,  Literary  Anecdotes  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  p.  328.) 

^*  December  15,  1816,  Shelley  wrote  Mary  Godwin:  Hunt's  "delicate 
and  tender  attentions  to  me,  his  kind  speeches  of  you,  have  sustained  me 
against  the  weight  of  the  horror  of  this  event."  (Dowden,  Life  of  Shelley, 
U,  p.  68.) 


^ 


70 

The  Examiner}^  This  sympathy  and  support,  given  Shelley 
in  his  hour  of  greatest  need  and  desolation,  have  never  been 
sufficiently  valued  in  a  comparative  estimate  of  the  relative 
indebtedness  of  the  two  men.  If  Shelley  gave  freely  of  his 
money,  Hunt,  devoid  of  vvordly  goods,  gave  unstintingly,  to  the 
detriment  of  his  reputation,  of  those  things  which  money  can- 
not purchase.  That  he  incurred  the  displeasure  of  men  in 
power,  and  ran  the  risk  of  being  misunderstood  by  the  public 
in  befriending  Shelley,  did  not  deter  him  for  an  instant.  \ 

During  1817  Shelley  made  the  acquaintance,  through  Hunt, 
of  the  Cockney  circle,  including  Keats,  Reynolds,  Hazlitt, 
Brougham,  Novello  and  Horace  Smith.  The  last-named  be- 
came one  of  Shelley's  most  trusted  friends.-"  These  new 
friends  enlarged  his  list  of  acquaintances  considerably,  for  up 
to  this  time  he  seems  to  have  had  no  friends  except  Godwin, 
Hogg  and  Peacock. 

In  the  early  spring  of  18 18,  the  Shelley s  went  to  Italy,  mel- 
ancholy with  the  thought  of  separation  from  the  Hunts.^^ 
The  letters  from  Shelley  to  Hunt  during  the  next  four  years 
form  an  important  part  of  Shelley's  correspondence. 

The  part  played  by  Shelley  in  the  invitation  extended  to 
Hunt  to  join  Lord  Byron  and  himself  in  Italy  and  to  become 
one  of  the  editors  of  a  periodical  will  be  treated  minutely  in 
the  next  chapter.  It  is  sufficient  here  to  say  that  he  was 
actuated  by  a  desire  to  better  Hunt's  finances  and  to  enjoy  his 
society — a  pleasure  he  had  been  pining  for  ever  since  they  had 
been  separated,  and,  in  case  of  a  return  to  England,  regarded 
as  the  one  joy  "  among  all  the  other  sources  of  regret  and  dis- 
comfort with  which  England  abounds  for  me.  .  .  .  Shaking 
hands  with  you  is  worth  all  the  trouble ;  the  rest  is  clear  loss."-- 

"  (a)  The  Examiner,  January  26,  1817.  (b)  Ibid.,  February  12,  1817. 
(c)  Ibid.,  August  31,  1817.  (d)  Hunt,  Correspondence,  I,  p.  114;  August 
27,  1817. 

*°  Shelley  said  of  Horace  Smith :  "  but  is  it  not  odd  that  the  only  truly 
generous  person  I  ever  knew,  who  had  money  to  be  generous  with,  should 
be  a  stockbroker."  (Hunt,  Autobiography,  I,  p.  211.)  See  also  Letter  to 
Maria  Gisborne,  11.  247-253  ;  Forman,  Works  of  Shelley,  HI,  p.  225  ff. 

^"^  Works  of  Shelley,  VIII,  p.  3;   March  22,   1818. 

-Works  of  Shelley,  VIII,  p.   141;   November   I3,'.i8i9. 


71 

Further,  he  knew  that  Hunt  longed  for  Italy,  and  he  wished 
to  help  Byron  in  the  cavise  of  liberalism.  To  bring  both  ends 
about,  he  shouldered  a  burden  that  he  was  ill  able  to  bear.  An 
annuity  of  i200  for  the  support  of  his  two  children,  an  annuity 
of  £ioo  to  Peacock,  perpetual  demand  for  large  sums  from 
Godwin,  occasional  assistance  rendered  the  Gisbornes,  partial 
support  of  Jane  Claremont,  loans  to  Byron,  and  the  support  of 
his  family,  were  the  drains  already  upon  him — met,  in  the 
main  by  money  raised  on  post  obits  at  half  value. 

The  amount  of  Hunt's  indebtedness  to  Shelley  can  be  esti- 
mated only  approximately.  The  first  reference  to  a  financial 
transaction  between  them  after  the  "  princely  offer  "-^  is  to  be 
found  in  Mary  Shelley's  letter  of  December  6,  1816,  in  which 
she  wondered  that  Hunt  had  not  acknowledged  the  "  receipt  of 
so  large  a  sum."  Professor  Dowden  thinks  this  may  be  an 
allusion  to  Shelley's  response  to  an  appeal  for  the  poor  of 
Spitalfields  which  had  appeared  in  The  Examiner  five  days 
previously.^*  Shelley's  offers  to  Hunt  to  borrow  iioo  from 
Byron-^  and  to  stand  security  for  a  loan  from  Charles  Cowden 
Clarke,-''  and  an  attempt  to  borrow  from  Samuel  Rogers-^  are 
not  developed  by  any  further  facts,  but  it  is  necessary  to  take 
note  of  them  in  a  general  estimate.  Before  leaving  England, 
Shelley  arranged  with  Oilier  for  a  loan  of  £100  for  Hunt,  a 
debt  which  was  later  liquidated  by  the  sale  of  the  Literary 
Pocket  Book.^^  At  some  time  before  leaving  England,  Shelley 
also  gave  Hunt  in  one  year  £1,400-^  for  the  liquidation  of  his 
debts,  which  money  was,  Medwin  says,  borrowed  from  Horace 
Smith.^**     Unfortunately  for  Shelley,  th<ip  sum  was  insufficient 

^  Professor  Masson  says  that  one  of  Shelley's  first  acts  was  to  offer 
Hunt  £100.  It  is  probable  he  refers  to  the  occasion  already  discussed. 
{Wordsworth,  Shelley,  Keats  and  Other  Essays,  p.  112.) 

^  Dowden,  Life  of  Shelley,  II,  p.  61. 

-^  Nicoll  and  Wise,  Literary  Anecdotes  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  p. 
331  ;  December  8,  1816. 

'^  Ibid.,  p.  336;  August  16,  181 7. 

^  Rogers,  Table  Talk,  p.  236. 

^Hunt,  Correspondence,  I,  p.  146;  September  12,  1819. 

^  Hunt,  Autobiography,  II,  p.  36;  Correspondence,  I,  p.   126. 

'"Medwin,  Life  of  Shelley,  II,  p.  137. 


/2 

to  extricate  Hunt  from  his  difficulties.  Miss  Mitford  gives 
the  amount  as  £1,500,  instead  of  £1,400,  and  adds  that  Shel- 
ley's furniture  and  bedding  were  swept  off  to  pay  Hunt's  cred- 
itors;^^ the  inaccuracy  of  the  first  statement  and  the  lack  of 
any  evidence  to  support  the  second,  lead  one  to  doubt  the  story. 
But  it  is  true  that  Shelley's  income  at  the  time  was  only  i  1,000. 
Even  when  so  far  away  as  Italy,  Hunt's  money  troubles 
weighed  heavily  upon  Shelley  in  a  continual  regret  that  he 
could  not  set  him  entirely  free  from  his  creditors  f"^  he  feared 
that  the  incredible  exertions  Hunt  was  making  on  The  Indi- 
cator and  on  The  Examiner,  and  the  privations  that  he  en- 
dured, would  undermine  his  health.^^  When  Hunt  finally 
decided  to  go  to  Italy,  Shelley  assumed,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
the  chief  responsibility  of  providing  the  means. 

As  early  as  181 8,  when  Shelley  and  Byron  met  in  "Venice,  the 
matter  of  the  journal  was  discussed  between  them  and  broached 
to  Hunt.  December  22,  1818,  Shelley  wrote  him  that  Byron 
wished  him  to  come  to  Italy  and  that,  if  money  considerations 
prevented,  Byron  would  lend  him  £400  or  £500.  He  added 
that  Hunt  should  not  feel  uncomfortable  in  accepting  the  offer, 
as  it  was  frankly  made,  and  that  his  society  would  give  Byron 
pleasure  and  service.^*  Hunt  does  not  seem  to  have  seriously 
considered  the  proposition,  for  there  are  few  references  to  it 
in  his  correspondence  of  this  year.  On  the  renewal  of  the  plan 
in  182 1,  Shelley  would  never  have  called  on  Byron  for  assist- 
ance for  Hunt  if  he  himself  could  have  provided  otherwise,  for 
his  opinion  of  Byron  had  changed  in  the  meantime.^^  January 
25,  1822,  Shelley  sent  £150  for  the  expenses  of  the  voyage, 
"  within  30  or  40  pounds  of  what  I  have  contrived  to  scrape 

^Mitford,  Life,  I,  p,  280.     Jeaffreson,  The  Real  Shelley,  II,  p.  357. 

^-NicoU  and  Wise,  Literary  Anecdotes,  p.  348;  April  s,  1820.  He 
assumed  the  debt  for  Hunt's  piano  as  naturally  as  he  did  for  his  own. 
Prof.  Dowden  says  that  John  Hunt  expected  Shelley  to  become  responsible 
for  all  of  his  brother's  debts.     (Life  of  Shelley,  II,  p.  458.) 

^^  Hunt,   Correspondence,  I,  p.  158;  November  11,   1820. 

^  Nicoll  and  Wise,  Literary  Anecdotes  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  p.  342. 

^See  Chapter  IV,  p.  89. 


73 

together"  ;^^  and  again  on  February  23,  £250,^'^  borrowed  with 
security  from  Byron.  Yet  Shelley's  own  exchequer  at  the  time 
was  so  low  that  Alary  Shelley  wrote  in  the  spring :  "  We  are 
drearily  behindhand  with  money  at  present.  Hunt  and  our 
furniture  has  swallowed  up  more  than  our  savings. "^^  On 
April  10  Shelley  stated  that  he  was  trying  to  finish  Charles  the 
First  in  order  that  he  might  earn  iioo  for  Hunt. 
!  In  round  numbers  it  may  be  calculated  that  the  sum  total  of 
Hunt's  indebtedness,  exclusive  of  the  yearly  bequest  of  ii20 
paid  by  Shelley's  son,  was  about  £2,500,  a  very  large  sum  in 
the  light  of  Shelley's  limited  resources  and  other  obligations. 
But  it  was  as  ungrudgingly  given  as  it  was  graciously  received. 
Between  the  two  men  there  was  no  distinction  of  meiim  and 
tuum.  More  remarkable  still,  Mary  Shelley  gave  as  willingly 
as  her  husband,  li  one  is  inclined  to  marvel  at  such  an  un- 
usual state  of  affairs,  it  must  be  recalled  that  both  men  were 
under  the  spell  of  William  Godwin's  theories  of  community  of 
property.  Shelley  gave  as  his  duty  and  Hunt  received  as  his 
due.  That  the  effort  involved  much  deprivation  and  distress 
of  mind  on  the  part  of  the  giver  mars  the  justice  of  acceptance 
by  the  recipient,  retrieved  only  in  part  by  the  belief  that  Hunt 
probably  did  not  know  the  full  extent  of  Shelley's  sacrifice, 
and  the  knowledge  that  the  former  would  gladly  have  endured 
as  much  if  the  conditions  had  been  reversed.  The  element  of 
self-sacrifice  and  delicacy  on  the  part  of  Shelley  in  concealing 
it,  in  after  years  only  added  to  the  beauty  of  the  gift  in  Hunt's 
eyes,  and  even  at  the  time  he  cannot  be  accused  of  indiffer- 
ence.^^    Jeaffreson  makes  the  absurd  suggestion  that  Shelley 

'' Dowden,  Life  of  Shelley^  II,  p.  456;  also  Works  of  Shelley,  VIII,  p. 
252. 

^'  (a)  NicoU  and  Wise,  Literary  Anecdotes,  pp.  352,  356.  (b)  Byron, 
Letters  and  Journals,  VI,  p.   11. 

""Dowden,  Life  of  Shelley,  11,  p.  489. 

^^  Hunt,  Autobiography,  II,  pp.  36-37.  In  August,  1819,  Hunt  importunes 
Shelley  to  give  no  thought  to  his  affairs  {Correspondence,  I,  p.  136).  Hunt 
wrote  Mary  Shelley  on  September  7,  1821  :  "  Pray  thank  Shelley  or  rather 
do  not,  for  that  kind  part  of  his  offer  relating  to  the  expenses.  I  find  I 
have  omitted  it ;  but  the  instinct  that  led  me  to  do  so  is  more  honorable 
to  him  than  thanks."     {Correspondence,   I,  p.    171.) 


74 

gave  the  money  as  a  bribe  to  the  editor  of  a  powerful  and  flour- 
ishing hterary  journal.^"  He  thinks  dodging  creditors  was  a 
strong  bond  of  mutual  interest  between  the  two  men.  There 
is  evidence  that  Hunt  was  in  difficulty  at  the  time  and  that 
Shelley  left  a  surgeon's  bill  unpaid,*^  but  there  is  no  proof 
extant  of  deliberate  mutual  protection.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
most  unlikely. 

The  Hunts  sailed  from  England  in  November,  1821,  and 
reached  Leghorn  nearly  nine  months  after  first  setting  out  on 
a  voyage  which,  in  its  delays  and  dangers,  Byron  compared 
to  the  "  periplus  of  Hanno  the  Carthaginian,  and  with  much 
the  same  speed  "  ;*^  Peacock  to  that  of  Ulysses.*^  Of  Shelley's 
suggestion  to  make  the  trip  by  sea,  Hunt  wrote:  "if  he  had 
recommended  a  balloon,  I  should  have  been  inclined  to  try 
it."**  Hogg,  with  his  characteristic  humour,  remarked  that  a 
journey  by  land  would  have  taken  equally  long,  since  Hunt 
would  have  stopped  to  gather  all  the  daisies  by  the  wayside 
from  Paris  to  Pisa.  Both  men  looked  forward  to  many  years 
together*^  and  Shelley,  in  his  letter  of  welcome,  wrote  that 
wind  and  waves  parted  them  no  more,*''  an  assertion  which 
now  sounds  like  a  knell  of  doom.  From  Leghorn  Shelley  con- 
veyed the  party  to  Pisa  and  installed  them  in  the  lower  floor 
of  Byron's  dwelling,  the  Lanfranchi  Palace.*'^  To  Shelley  fell 
the  difficult  task  of  keeping  Lord  Byron  in  heart  for  the  new 
undertaking  and  of  reviving  Hunt's  drooping  spirits.  Hunt's 
funds  were  all  gone  and  in  their  place  was  a  debt  of  sixty 
crowns.  The  next  few  days  were  full  of  grave  anxiety  and 
foreboding  for  the  future,  broken  only  by  a  delightful  Sunday 
spent  in  seeing  the  Cathedral  and  the  Tower.  Of  this  day 
Hunt  wrote :  "  Good  God !  what  a  day  was  that,  compared  with 

*"  Jeaffreson,  The  Real  Shelley,  II,  p.  355. 

*'  VV.  M.  Rossetti,  Complete  Poetical  Works  of  Percy  Bysshe  Shelley,  I, 
p.  75- 

*^  Letters  and  Journals,  VI,  p,  96. 

"  Kent,  Leigh  Hunt  as  Poet  and  Essayist,  p.  28. 

**  Autobiography,  II,  p.  60. 

*^  Atlantic  Monthly,  February,  1863. 

*^  Works  of  Shelley,  VIII,  p.  283.     June  19,   1822. 

*'  Built    by    Michaelangelo    and    situated    on    the    Arno. 


75 

all  that  have  followed  it!  I  had  my  friend  with  me,  arm-in- 
arm, after  a  separation  of  years:  he  was  looking  better  than  I 
had  ever  seen  him — we  talked  of  a  thousand  things — we  antici- 
pated a  thousand  pleasures."^*  Then  came  the  fatal  Monday 
with  its  shipwreck  of  many  hopes — in  its  tragic  sequel  too  well 
known  to  need  repetition  here.  Hunt's  last  services  to  his 
friend  were  his  assistance  rendered  at  the  cremation  and  his 
contribution  of  the  now  famous  Latin  epitaph  "  cor  cordiiim."'^^ 
^^ith  Shelley  perished  Hunt's  chief  hope  in  life;  in  the  opin- 
ion of  his  son,  he  was  never  the  same  man  again.  In  1832,  at 
his  period  of  darkest  depression,  he  wrote:  "H  you  ask  me 
how  it  is  that  I  bear  all  this,  I  answer,  that  I  love  nature  and 
books,  and  think  well  of  the  capabilities  of  human  kind.  I 
have  known  Shelley,  I  have  known  my  mother."^"  In  1844 
he  claimed  as  his  proudest  title,  the  "  Friend  of  Shelley.""^ 

*^  The  Liberal,  I,  p.   103. 

"  Brandes  attributes  the  inscription  to  Mary  Siielley.  (Main  Currents  in 
Nineteen  Century  Literature,  IV,  p.  208,) 

^  Correspondence,  I,  p.  269. 

"  After  Shelley's  death,  Mary  Shelley  decided  to  remain  in  Italy  in 
order  to  assist  with  The  Liberal.  She  considered  Hunt  "  expatriated  at 
the  request  and  desire  of  others,"  and,  in  helping  him,  she  thought  to 
fulfil  any  obligation  that  Shelley  might  have  assumed  in  the  scheme.  For 
her  services  she  received  thirty-three  pounds.  She  lived  for  some  time 
in  the  same  house  with  the  Hunts  after  they  separated  from  Lord  Byron, 
but  the  arrangement  was  an  unhappy  one.  Disagreements,  beginning  with 
a  misunderstanding  concerning  the  possession  of  Shelley's  heart,  dragged 
through  the  winter.  Fortunately  everything  was  adjusted  before  they 
separated.  July,  1823,  she  wrote  of  Hunt:  "he  is  all  kindness,  considera- 
tion and  friendship — all  feeling  of  alienation  towards  me  has  disappeared 
to  its  last  dregs,"  (Marshall,  The  Life  and  Letters  of  Mary  Wollstone- 
craft  Godwin,  London,  1889,  II,  p.  81.)  And  again:  "But  thank  heaven 
we  are  now  the  best  friends  in  the  world,  ...  It  is  a  delightful  thing, 
my  dear  Jane,  to  be  able  to  express  one's  affection  upon  an  old  and  tried 
friend  like  Hunt,  and  one  so  passionately  attached  to  my  Shelley  as  he 
was,  and  is,  .  .  .  He  was  displeased  with  me  for  many  just  reasons,  but 
he  found  me  willing  to  expiate,  as  far  as  I  could,  the  evil  I  had  done; 
his  heart  again  warmed,  and  if  when  I  return  you  find  me  more  amiable, 
and  more  willing  to  suffer  with  patience  than  I  was,  it  is  to  him  that 
I   owe  this  benefit."     (Ibid.,   II,  p,  85.) 


76 

The  first  printed  notice  of  Shelley  was  in  The  Examiner  of 
December  i,  1816.  Therefore  to  Hunt  belongs  in  this  case,  as 
in  that  of  Keats,  the  credit  of  discovery.  It  is  difficult  to 
account  for  Hunt's  tardiness  of  recognition,^-  coming  as  it  did 
six  years  after  Shelley  first  wrote  him,  five  years  after  the 
Finnerty  poem,  three  years  after  Queen  Mah,  and  two  years 
after  the  visit  in  prison.^^  Also  Shelley  had  sent  contribu- 
tions to  The  Examiner,  which  Hunt  had  not  accepted,  but 
which  he  vaguely  recalled  at  the  time  of  writing  his  first  review 
on  Shelley.  It  was  inspired  by  the  announcement  of  Alastor, 
and  consisted  of  about  ten  lines,  embodied  in  the  article  on 
Keats  and  Reynolds  already  referred  to.  Hunt  pronounced 
Shelley  "  a  very  striking  and  original  thinker."  Shelley's  reply 
to  a  letter  from  Hunt,  telling  him  of  the  notice,  pictures  him 
anxiously  scouring  the  countryside  about  Bath  for  the  sight  of 
a  copy  and  buoyed  up  at  last  by  the  news  of  one  five  miles 
distant. 

This  notice  was  followed  by  the  publication  of  the  Hymn  to 
Intellectual  Beauty  in  The  Examiner  of  January  19,  1817;  a 
notice  of  the  Chancery  suit,  January  26  and  February  2;  and 
an  extract  from  Laon  and  Cythna,  November  30.  A  review 
of  the  Rez'olt  of  Islam  ran  through  three  numbers,  January  25, 
February  8  and  22,  1818.  Shelley's  system  of  charity  and  his 
crusade  against  tyranny,  as  set  forth  in  the  preface.  Hunt 
loudly  applauded.  Many  extracts  were  italicized  for  the  guid- 
ance of  the  public.  The  beauties  of  the  poem  were  pronounced 
to  be  its  mysticism,  its  wildness,  its  depth  of  sentiment,  its 
grandeur  of  imagery,  and  its  varied  and  sweet  versification. 
In  the  boldness  of  speculation  and  in  the  love  of  virtue  Hunt 
saw  a  resemblance  to  Lucretius,  while  in  the  gloom  and  imagi- 
nation of  certain  passages,  particularly  in  the  grandeur  of  the 
supernatural  architecture,  he  was  reminded  of  Dante.  The 
defects  were  pronounced  to  be  obscurity  of  narrative  and  same- 
ness of  image  and  metaphor.  The  review  closed  with  the 
prophecy  "  we  have  no  doubt  he  is  destined  to  be  one  of  the 
leading  spirits  of  the  age." 

"^  Jeaffreson  assigns  the  cause  of  Hunt's  neglect  to  his  ignorance  of  the 

fact  that  he  could  suck  money  out  of  Shelley.     The  Real  Shelley,  II,  p,  352. 

"■'  Mac-Carthay  in  Literary  Anecdotes  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  p.   302. 


77 

The  Quarterly  Reviczv  of  May,  1818,  accused  Shelley^*  of 
atheism  and  of  dissolute  conduct  in  private  hfe;  the  same  jour- 
nal of  April,  1819,  reviewing  the  Revolt  of  Islam  on  the  basis 
of  the  suppressed  version  of  Laon  and  Cythna,  though  it  did 
not  fail  to  appreciate  the  genius  and  beauty  of  the  poem, 
charged  Shelley  with  a  predilection  for  incest  and  with  a  frantic 
dislike  for  Christianity.  It  called  the  support  of  The  Exam- 
iner "  the  sweet  undersong  of  the  weekly  journal."^^  The  two 
attacks  were  met  by  a  strong  protest  from  Hunt,^°  particularly 
in  regard  to  the  part  dealing  with  Shelley's  life.  He  denied 
the  propriety  of  such  discussion  in  public  criticism  and  de- 
clared that  he  had  never  known  Shelley  to  "  deviate,  notwith- 
standing his  theories,  even  into  a  single  action  which  those  who 
dififer  with  him  might  think  blameable."  His  life  at  Marlow 
was  described  as  spent  in  "  beautiful  charity  and  generosity  " 
and  was  likened  to  that  of  Plato.  In  1821  an  attack  on  Shel- 
ley by  Hazlitt  was  met  by  an  angry  warning  from  Hunt  and 
a  threat  to^  become  his  public  enemy,  if  the  offense  were  re- 
peated.^'^  Hunt's  reason  for  taking  this  defensive  attitude  was 
that  he  knew  that  Shelley  suffered  greatly  from  such  malig- 
nant exploitations. and  that  he  would  not  defend  himself ;  there- 
fore he  made  his  friend's  cause  his  own  and  wrote:  "  I  reckon 
upon  your  leaving  your  personal  battles  to  me,"^^  much  in  the 
same  manner  as  Shelley  had  assumed  his  money  troubles. 

Following  the  review  of  the  Revolt  of  Islam,  a  notice  of 

^  Shelley  was  deeply  wounded  by  the  attack.  He  wrote  Hunt :  "  As 
to  what  relates  to  yourself  and  me,  it  makes  me  melancholy  to  consider 
the  dreadful  wickedness  of  the  heart  which  would  have  prompted  such 
expressions  as  those  with  which  the  anonymous  writer  gloats  over  my 
domestic  calamities  and  the  perversion  of  understanding  with  which  he 
paints  your  character."  (NicoU  and  Wise,  Literary  Anecdotes,  p.  340 ; 
December   22,    1818.) 

°^  Shelley  at  first  attributed  the  article  in  the  Quarterly  to  Southey  on 
the  grounds  of  his  enmity  to  The  Examiner  which,  Shelley  declared,  had 
been  the  "  crown  of  thorns  worn  by  this  unredeemed  Redeemer  for  many 
years.  Southey  denied  the  authorship.  (Nicoll  and  Wise,  Literary  Anec- 
dotes, p.  341  ;  December  22,  1818.) 

"^  The  Examiner,  September  26,  October  3  and  10,  1819.  See  also  Corre- 
spondence, I,  pp.  125-126. 

^''Correspondence,  I,  p.  169.  ^  Ibid.,  I,  p.  166. 


78 

Rosalind  and  Helen  and  oi  Lines  Written  among  the  Euganean 
Hills^^  appeared  in  The  Examiner  of  May  9,  1819.  Attention 
was  called  to  the  poet's  optimism  and  to  his  great  love  of  na- 
ture :  "  the  beauty  of  the  external  world  has  an  answering 
heart,  and  the  very  whispers  of  the  wind  a  meaning."  The 
Cenci,  published  in  1820,  contained  in  its  dedication  a  glowing 
tribute  to  Hunt,  an  honour  in  Shelley's  opinion  only  in  a  small 
degree  worthy  of  his  friend.*'*'  Hunt  was  intoxicated  with  the 
honour  and  wrote:  "I  feel  as  if  you  had  bound,  not  only  my 
head,  but  my  very  soul  and  body  with  laurels."*'^  On  the 
subject  of  the  tragedy  he  was  equally  enthusiastic:  "What  a 
noble  book,  Shelley,  have  you  given  us !  What  a  true,  stately, 
and  yet  affectionate  mixture  of  poetry,  philosophy,  and  human 
nature,  horror,  and  all  redeeming  sweetness  of  intention,  for 
there  is  an  undersong  of  suggestion  through  it  all,  that  sings, 
as  it  were,  after  the  storm  is  over,  like  a  brook  in  April."*'^  In 
a  public  expression  of  his  opinion  in  The  Examiner  of  March 
19,  1820,  Hunt  pronounced  The  Cenci  the  greatest  dramatic 
production  of  the  day.  Writing  of  the  drama  again  in  the 
same  journal  of  July  19  and  26,  1820,  he  called  Shelley  "a 
framer  of  mighty  lines"  and  continued:  "Majesty  and  Love 
do  sit  on  one  throne  in  the  lofty  buildings  of  his  poetry;  and 
they  will  be  found  there,  at  a  late  and  we  trust  a  happier  day, 
on  a  seat  immortal  as  themselves." 

One  of  Hunt's  most  perfect  poems,  Jaffdr,  is  inscribed  to  the 
memory  of  Shelley.  The  praise  of  Jaffdr  and  his  friend's 
undying  loyalty  immediately  suggest  to  the  reader  that  Hunt 

''  See  Hunt,  Correspondence,  I,  p,   130. 

*"  For  Shelley's  desire  for  Hunt's  good  opinion,  see  Works  of  Shelley, 
Vni,  p.  167.  Hunt's  collection  of  poems,  published  during  1818,  under 
the  title  of  Foliage  was  dedicated  to  Shelley :  "  Had  I  known  a  person  more 
highly  endowed  than  yourself  with  all  the  qualities  that  it  becomes  a  man 
to  possess,  I  had  selected  for  this  work  the  ornament  of  his  name.  One 
more  gentle,  honorable,  innocent  and  brave ;  one  of  more  exalted  tolera- 
tion of  all  who  do  and  think  evil ;  one  who  knows  better  how  to  receive, 
and  how  to  confer  a  benefit  though  he  must  ever  confer  far  more  than 
he  can  receive;  one  of  simpler,  and  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word,  of 
purer  life  and  manners  I  never  knew  :  and  I  had  already  been  fortunate  in 
friendships  when  your  name  was  added  to  the  list." 

'^^Correspondence,  I,  p.   153.  '^^  Ibid.,  I,  p.   154. 


79 

may  have  been  celebrating  his  own  and  Shelley's  friendship. 
The  last  review  to  appear  during  Shelley's  lifetime  by  Hunt 
was  that  of  Prometheus  Unbound  in  three  numbers  of  The 
Examiner  of  1822.  A  projected  review  of  Adonais  alluded  to 
in  a  letter  of  Hunt's  does  not  seem  to  have  seen  the  light  of 
publication,  but  a  reference  in  a  letter  at  the  time  is  worth 
noting :  "  It  is  the  most  Delphic  poety  I  have  seen  in  a  long 
while:  full  of  those  embodyings  of  the  most  subtle  and  airy 
imaginations, — those  arrestings  and  explanations  of  the  most 
shadowy  yearnings  of  our  being."*^^  The  well-known  account 
of  Shelley's  rescue  of  a  woman  on  Hampstead  Heath  was  told 
in  The  Literary  Examiner  of  August  23,  1823."^*  The  same 
magazine  of  September  20  of  the  same  year*^^  contained  the 
following  Sonnet  to  Percy  Shelley,  given  here  because  of  its 
general  inaccessibility : 

"  Hast  thou  from  earth,  then,  really  passed  away. 
And  mingled  with  the  shadowy  mass  of  things 
Which  were,  but  are  not  ?     Will  thy  harp's  dear  strings 
No  more  yield  music  to  the  rapid  play 
Of  thy  swift  thoughts,  now  turned  thou  art  to  clay? 
Hark  I     Is  that  rushing  of  thy  spirit's  wings. 
When   (like  the  skylark,  who  in  mounting  sings) 
Soaring  through  high  imagination's  way. 
Thou  pour'dst  thy  melody  upon  the  earth. 
Silent  for  ever?     Yes,  wild  ocean's  wave 
Hath  o'er  thee  rolled.     But  whilst  within  the  grave 
Thou  sleepst,  let  me  in  the  love  of  thy  pure  worth 
One  thing  foretell, — that  thy  great  fame  shall  be 
Progressive  as  Time's  flood,  eternal  as  the  sea !  " 

In  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries  appeared 
the  first  biographical  memoir  of  Shelley,  a  sketch  of  some  sev- 
enty pages. ^°     It   shows  great  appreciation  of  the  fine   and 

^  Ibid.,  I,  p.  179;  March  26,  1822. 

"  In  an  article  on  the  Suburbs  of  Genoa  and  the  Country  about  London, 
pp.   118-119.  '°  Dated  August  4,  1823. 

°°  The  second  part  of  the  sketch  was  in  answer  to  the  Quarterly  Reviczv's 
attack  on  the  Posthumous  Poems,  which  Mrs.  Shelley,  aided  by  Hunt,  had 
published  in  1824.  This  account  was  reworked  in  1850  for  the  Auto- 
biography and  was  taken  in  part  for  the  preface  to  an  edition  of  Shelley's 
works  in  1871.  Hunt  wrote  another  biographical  sketch  of  Shelley  for 
S.  C.  Hall's  Book  of  Gems  (p.  40).  He  gave  a  fine  description  of  his 
physical  appearance  not  often  quoted. 


80 

gentle  qualities  of  his  rare  genius  and  defends  some  of  the 
weak  points  of  his  career.  The  description  of  his  personal 
appearance,  of  the  life  at  Marlowe,  and  the  few  anecdotes  are 
often  quoted.  But  on  the  whole,  it  lacks  the  bold  strokes  of 
vivid  portraiture  and  it  is  very  disappointing.'''  There  was 
probably  no  one,  with  the  exception  of  his  wife,  who  knew 
Shelley  so  well  as  Hunt  and  who  was,  therefore,  in  a  position 
to  give  as  complete  and  intimate  an  idea  of  him.  It  was  Mrs. 
Shelley's  wish  that  Hunt  should  be  her  husband's  biographer, 
for  she  thought  that  he,  "perhaps  above  all  others,  understood 
his  nature  and  his  genius."*'^  Hunt,  in  The  Spectator  of  Au- 
gust 13,  1859,  gave  as  his  reason  for  not  writing  Shelley's  life 
that  he  "  could  not  survive  enough  persons."  But  it  is  to  be 
questioned  if  he  were  fitted  for  the  task.  His  son  did  not  think 
that  he  was  because  of  his  attention  to  details  and  his  irresist- 
ible tendency  to  analysis :  "  a  mind,  in  short,  like  that  of 
Hamlet,  cultivated  rather  than  corrected  by  the  trials  of  life, 
was  scarcely  suited  to  comprehend  the  strong  instincts,  indomi- 
table will,  and  complete  unity  of  idea  which  distinguished 
Shelley."«» 

In  the  Tatlcr  of  August  i,  1831,  Hunt  wrote  that  "Mr. 
y  Shelley  was  a  platonic  philosopher,  of  the  acutest  and  loftiest 
kind,"  and  that  he  belonged  to  the  school  of  Plato  and  iEschylus, 
as  Keats  belonged  to  that  of  Spenser  and  Milton.  Following 
The  Tatler  was  the  preface  to  The  Mask  of  Anarchy/^  pub- 
lished in  1832,  originally  designed  for  The  Examiner  in  1819, 
but  laid  aside  by  the  editor  because  he  thought  the  public  not 
discerning  enough  "  to  do  justice  to  the  sincerity  and  kind- 
heartedness  of  the  spirit  that  walked  in  this  flaming  robe  of 
verse."  The  preface  eulogizes  the  poet's  spiritual  nature  and 
his  "seraphic  purpose  of  good."  In  The  Seer,  1841,  Shelley's 
qualities  of  heart  were  pronounced  more  enduring  than  his 
genius. '^^ 

"  It  was  considered  by  the  Athaneum  to  be  the  best  part  of  the  book, 
and  to  be  the  "  powerful  portrait  of  a  benevolent  man."     (VI,  p.  70,) 

^Letter  to   Oilier,   February,    1858. 

^*  Atlantic  Monthly,   February,    1863. 

'"  Forman,  Shelley  Library,  p.  113,  says  that  the  motto  from  Laon  and 
Cynthia  was  added  by  Hunt.  '^  Pt.  2,  p.  Z7- 


81 

Imagination  and  Fancy  contained  an  essay  and  selections 
from  his  poems.  Here  Hunt  makes  the  curious  statement  that 
little  in  the  poems  is  purely  poetical,  but  rather  moral,  political, 
and  speculative.  It  is  noteworthy  that  he  predicts,  probably 
for  the  first  time,  that,  had  Shelley  lived,  he  would  have  been 
the  greatest  dramatic  writer  since  the  days  of  Elizabeth,  if 
not,  indeed,  actually  so,  through  what  he  did  accomplish;  a 
statement  often  repeated.  He  says:  "If  Coleridge  is  the 
sweetest  of  our  poets,  Shelley  is  at  once  the  most  ethereal  and 
gorgeous,  the  one  who  has  clothed  his  thought  in  draperies  of 
the  most  evanescent  and  most  magnificent  words  and  imagery. 
.  .  .  Shelley  .  .  .  might  well  call  himself  Ariel."'^-  In  con- 
nection with  Shelley's  ethereal  qualities,  Mrs.  James  T.  Fields 
quotes  Hunt  as  having  said  on  another  occasion  that  Shelley 
always  seemed  to  him  as  if  he  were  "  just  alit  from  the  planet 
Mercury,  bearing  a  winged  wand  tipped  with  flame.""  In 
Imagination  and  Fancy,  Hunt  continues:  "  Not  Milton  himself 
is  more  learned  in  Grecisms,  or  nicer  in  entomological  pro- 
priety; and  nobody,  throughout,  has  a  style  so  Orphic  and 
primeval." 

It  is  a  touching  circumstance  that  Hunt's  last  letter  bore 
reference  to  Shelley,  and  that  his  last  effort  as  a  public  writer, 
made  only  a  few  days  before  his  death,  was  in  vindication  of 
Shelley's  character.'^*  The  publication  of  the  Shelley  Memo- 
rials, 1859,  in  which  Hunt  had  a  part,  provoked  an  unfavorable 
review  in  The  Spectator.  Hunt  replied  in  the  next  number'^ 
of  the  same  paper.  In  particular  he  asserted  Shelley's  truth- 
fulness, which  had  been  assailed  in  respect  to  his  story  of  the 
attempted  assassination  in  Wales.  He  held  that  Shelley  was  not 
a  man  to  be  judged  by  ordinary  rules,  but  that  he  was 
the  highest  possible  exponent  of  humanity — an  approach  to 
divinity. 

Hunt's  literary  relation  with  Shelley  falls  into  two  divisions ; 
publications  written  for  Hunt's  periodicals,  and  received  by  Hunt 

"p.   217.  'M  Shelf  of  Old  Books,  p.  291. 

"  Hunt's  Book   of  the  Sonnet,  which  appeared  posthumously,   contained 
a  criticism  of  Shelley's  sonnet  on  Ozymandyas  (I,  p.  87). 
"August  13  and  20,   1859. 


82 

in  order  to  give  Shelley  an  outlet  of  expression  denied  him  in 
the  more  conservative  papers ;  and  second,  positive  literary 
imitation.  Besides  the  poems  quoted  in  Hunt's  criticisms  of 
Shelley,  the  first  includes  a  review  of  Godwin's  Mandeville,''^ 
a  letter  of  protest  regarding  the  second  edition  of  Queen 
Mob,''''  Marianne's  Dream,''^  Song  on  a  Faded  Violet,''^  The 
Sunset,^^  The  Question,^^  Good  Night,^~  Sonnet,  Ye  Hasten  to 

the  Grave,^^  To  {Lines  to  a  Revieiver) ,^^  November, 

1815,^^  Love's  Philosophy, ^'^  and  the  contributions  designed  by 
Shelley  for  The  Liberal  and  published  after  his  death.^^  Pro- 
ductions which  were  written  for  Hunt's  papers,  but  were  not 
accepted,  were  Peter  Bell  the  Third,  The  Mask  of  Anarchy, 
Julian  and  Maddalo,  a  letter  on  the  persecution  of  Richard 
Carlile,^^  letters  on  Italy,  and  a  review  of  Peacock's  Rhodo- 
daphne.  Hunt's  failure  to  accept  what  was  sent  him  greatly 
/  discouraged  Shelley  at  times:  "Mine  is  a  life  of  failures;  Pea- 
cock says  my  poetry  is  composed  of  day  dreams  and  night- 
mares, and  Leigh  Hunt  does  not  think  it  good  enough  for  The 
Examiner." 

On  a  Fete  at  Carlton  House,  an  attack  on  the  Prince  Regent, 
though  perhaps  directly  inspired  by  the  account  in  the  dailies 
of  the  ball  at  Carlton  House  on  June  20,  181 1,  was  doubtless 
influenced  by  the  continued  attacks  of  The  Examiner.  As 
there  are  extant  only  two  or  three  lines  of  the  poem,^^  it  is  im- 

''' The   Examiner,    December   28,    1817. 

'"  Ihid.,   July    15,    1 82 1. 

'"^Literary  Pocket  Book,  London,  1819.  Shelley's  signature  was  A  and  S. 
See  Hunt,   Correspondence,   I,    125. 

''^Literary  Pocket  Book,  1821.     {Works  of  Shelley,  III,  p.  150.) 

^Literary  Pocket  Book,  1821.     {Works  of  Shelley,  III,  p.  380.) 

'^^ Literary  Pocket  Book,  1822.     {Works  of  Shelley,  IV,  p.  32.) 

^- Ibid.,  1822.     {Works  of  Shelley,  IV,  p.  49.) 

^^Ihid.,  1823.     {Works  of  Shelley,  IV,  p.  63.) 

^*lhid.,   1823.     {Works  of  Shelley,  IV,  p.   41-) 

^  Ibid.,  1823.  Mr.  Forman  thinks  that  the  poem  refers  to  Harriet 
Shelley's  death  and  that  the  date  is  a  disguise.  {Works  of  Shelley,  III, 
p.   146.) 

*"  The   Indicator,    December   22,    1819. 

^^  Chapter    IV. 

^  Works  of  Shelley,  VIII,  p.  291  ;  November  3,  1819. 

*°  Works  of  Shelley,  IV,  p.  359. 


83 

possible  to  judge  of  the  extent  of  the  influence,  but  in  Shelley's 
letters  to  Hogg  and  to  Edward  Graham  describing  the  poem, 
there  is  resemblance  in  tone  and  epithet  to  The  Examiner.  A 
letter  from  Shelley  to  Lord  Ellenborough  on  the  occasion  of 
Eaton's  sentence  for  publishing  the  third  part  of  Paine's  Age 
of  Reason  followed  a  long  series  of  articles  by  Hunt  on  the 
prerogative  of  liberty  of  speech.**** 

A  meeting  of  Reformers  at  Manchester  on  the  sixteenth  of 
August,  1819,  for  the  purpose  of  discussing  quietly  the  annual 
meeting  of  Parliament,  universal  suffrage,  and  voting  by  ballot, 
was  dispersed  by  military  force.  Articles  setting  forth  the 
long  sufferings  of  the  Reformers,  charging  the  authorities  with 
wanton  bloodshed,  and  ridiculing  the  absurd  trial  of  the  offend- 
ers, appeared  in  The  Examiner  of  August  22,  29,  September  5, 
19  and  26.  The  Mask  of  Anarchy,  written  on  the  occasion  of 
the  massacre  at  Manchester,  was  sent  to  Leigh  Hunt  for  publi- 
cation sometime  before  the  first  of  November,  1819.  The  sen- 
timent of  both  men  is  the  same  regarding  the  affair. 

Accounts  of  the  death  of  the  Princess  Charlotte  and  of  the 
executions  for  high  treason  at  Derby  of  Brandreth,  Ludlam 
and  Turner,  after  a  horrible  imprisonment,  two  articles  in  The 
Examiner  of  November  9,  1819,  inspired  Shelley's  Address  to 
the  People  on  the  Death  of  the  Princess  Charlotte,  sometimes 
known  as  IVe  Pity  the  Plumage,  but  Forget  the  Dying  Bird, 
dated  November  12  of  the  same  year.  Hunt  followed  with  a 
second  article.  Death  of  the  Princess  Charlotte  and  Indecent 
Advantage  Taken  of  It,  November  16,  1819.  Both  writers 
called  attention  to  the  disposition  of  the  public  to  forget  the 
sufferings  of  the  poor,  while  it  mourned  hysterically  with  roy- 
alty; they  declared  that  the  administration  of  justice  and  the 
events  leading  to  such  crimes  wereof  much  greater  importance. 
Three  articles  in  The  Examiner  of  October  17,  24  and  31, 
1819,  on  the  trial  of  Richard  Carlile  for  libel,  were  followed 
by  an  open  letter  on  the  same  case  from  Shelley  to  Hunt  dated 
November  3,  1819.  By  scattered  references  it  can  be  seen  that 
Shelley  fully  agreed  with  Hunt  in  his  opinion  of  the  Prince 

°"  Six  months  later,  December  6,  1812,  Hunt  addressed  a  letter  to  Lord 
Ellenborough   on   the   same  subject   in   regard   to   his   own   sentence. 


84 

Regent  and  of  the  ]\Iinisters,  in  his  attitude  toward  the  cor- 
ruption of  the  court  and  of  the  army;  and  in  his  proposed 
regulation  of  taxes  and  of  the  pubHc  debt. 

CEdipus  Tyrannus  or  Szvellfoot  the  Tyrant,  begun  August, 
1820,  succeeded  a  series  of  articles,  beginning  in  The  Examiner 
of  June  II,  1820,  and  continuing  throughout  nineteen  num- 
bers,°^  on  the  subject  of  George  IV's  attempt  to  divorce  his 
wife.^^  Abhorrence  of  the  king's  perfidy  and  of  his  ministers' 
support,  sympathy  for  Queen  Caroline,  and  minor  details  par- 
allel closely  Hunt's  version  in  The  Examiner.  This  passage 
occurs  in  the  article  of  June  9 :  "  An  animal  sets  himself  down, 
month  after  month,  at  Milan,  to  watch  at  her  doors  and  win- 
dows, to  intercept  discarded  servants  and  others  who  know 
what  a  deposition  might  be  worth,  and  thus  to  gather  poison 
for  one  of  those  venomous  Green  Bags,  which  have  so  long 
infected  and  nauseated  the  people,  and  are  now  to  infect  the 
Queen."  This  seems  to  be  the  germ  of  the  passage  in  Shelley's 
poem  beginning: 

"  Behold  this  bag  !   it  is 
The  poison  Bag  of  that  Green  Spider  huge, 
On  which   our  spies   sulked  in   ovation  through 
The   streets    of   Thebes,    when   they   were   paved   with   dead." 

Then  follows  the  plot  to  throw  the  contents  upon  the  Queen. 
The  handling  of  the  heroic  couplet,  employed  in  the  Letter 
to  Maria  Gishorne  and  in  Epipsychidon,  as  well  as  in  Julian  and 
Maddalo,^^  has  been  already  discussed  in  its  relationship  to 
Hunt's  use  of  the  same.  Shelley,  in  a  letter  to  Hunt,  explains 
his  position  in  regard  to  the  language  of  Julian  and  Maddalo: 

"  You  will  find  the  little  piece,  I  think,  in  some  degree  consistent  with 
your  own  ideas  of  the  manner  in  which  poetry  ought  to  be  written.  I  have 
employed  a  certain  familiar  style  of  language  to  express  the  actual  way  in 

°' June  II,  18,  25,  July  2,  9,  August  27,  September  3,  10,  October  i,  8, 
15,  22,  December  3,  10,  17;  in  1821,  February  4,  August  12,  19,  and 
September  9.  The  last  three  articles  were  written  after  the  Queen's 
death. 

°"  Keats's  The  Cap  and  Bells  deals  with  the  same. 

°'  Shelley  gave  directions  that  the  poem  should  be  printed  like  Hunt's 
Hero  and  Leander.     Works  of  Shelley,  III,  p.  loi. 


85 

which  people  talk  to  each  other,  whom  education  and  a  certain  refinement 
of  sentiment  have  placed  above  the  use  of  vulgar  idioms.  I  use  the  word 
vulgar  in  its  most  extensive  sense.  The  vulgarity  of  rank  and  fashion  is 
as  gross,  in  its  way,  as  that  of  poverty,  and  its  cant  terms  equally  ex- 
pressive of  base  conceptions,  and  therefore,  equally  unfit  for  poetry.  Not 
that  the  familiar  style  is  to  be  admitted  in  the  treatment  of  a  subject 
wholly  ideal,  or  in  that  part  of  any  subject  which  relates  to  common  life, 
where  the  passion,  exceeding  a  certain  limit,  touches  the  boundary  of  that 
which  is  ideal.  Strong  passion  expresses  itself  in  metaphor,  borrowed 
alike  from  subjects  remote  or  near,  and  casts  over  all  the  shadow  of  its 
own  greatness.""^ 

Rosalind  and  Helen,  the  Letter  to  Maria  Gisborne,  Swellfoot 
the  Tyrant,  and  Peter  Bell  the  Third^^  show  a  similar  influence. 
The  Letter  to  Maria  Gisborne  bears  a  resemblance  to  Hunt's 
epistolary  style,  and  was  written,  Mr.  Forman  thinks,  for  cir- 
culation in  the  Hunt  circle  only.""  It  was  through  Hunt,  so 
Shelley  states  in  the  dedication,  that  he  knew  the  Peter  Bells 
of  Wordsworth  and  of  John  Hamilton  Reynolds.  Shelley's 
qualified  adoption  in  these  poems  of  Hunt's  theory  of  poetic 
language  is  seen  in  the  choice  of  a  vocabulary  in  dialogue 
nearer  everyday  usage  than  the  more  remote  one  of  his  other 
poems.  Yet  the  result  does  not  bear  any  great  resemblance  to 
Hunt.  Shelley's  unvarying  refinement  and  sensibility  kept  him 
from  committing  the  same  errors  of  taste,  but  his  work  suf- 
fered rather  than  gained  by  an  innovation  which  was  probably 
a  concession  to  his  friendship  for  Hunt  and  not  a  strong  con- 
viction. With  the  exception  of  the  descriptive  passages,  the 
keynote  of  these  poems  is  on  a  lower  poetic  pitch. 

On  subjects  of  Italian  art  and  literature  the  friends  held 
much  the  same  opinion.  At  times  Shelley  seems  to  have  been 
led  by  Hunt's  judgment,  as  in  his  conclusions  regarding  Raphael 

^Works  of  Shelley,  VIII,  p.  ii6;  August  15,  1819.  The  letter  instructs 
Hunt  to  throw  the  poem  into  the  fire  or  not  as  he  sees  fit  and  requests  him, 
in  preference  to  Peacock,  to  correct  the  proofs.  "  Can  you  take  it  as  a 
compliment  that  I  prefer  to  trouble  you  ?  " 

®°  Forman  wrongly  attributes  the  review  of  Reynolds'  Peter  Bell  in  The 
Examiner  of  April  25,  1819,  to  Hunt  and  says  that  this  "flippant  notice" 
by  Hunt  inspired  Shelley's  poem.  Ihid.,  II,  p.  288.  Reynolds  asked  Keats 
to  request  Hunt  to  review  his  poem.  Keats  did  it  himself.  (Keats,  Works, 
III,  pp.  246-249.) 

»"  Works  of  Shelley,  111,  p.  235. 


86 

and  Michaelangelo.^'  One  passage  on  the  Italian  poets  indi- 
cates a  possible  borrowing  of  thought  and  figure  on  Shelley's 
part  when  he  wrote  of  Boccaccio  that  he  was  superior  to 
Ariosto  and  to  Tasso,  "  the  children  of  a  later  and  colder  day. 
.  .  .  How  much  do  I  admire  Boccaccio !  What  descriptions  of 
nature  are  those  in  his  little  introduction  to  every  new  day! 
It  is  the  morning  of  life  stripped  of  that  mist  of  familiarity 
which  makes  it  obscure  to  us.""^  Hunt  wrote:  "Petrarch, 
Boccaccio  and  Dante  are  the  morning,  noon  and  night  of  the 
great  Italian  day."°^ 

Poems  which  refer  directly  to  Hunt  are  the  fourteen  lines  in 
the  Letter  to  Maria  Gisboi'iic ;^°°  possibly  the  fragment,  begin- 
ning, "  For  me,  my  friend,  if  not  that  tears  did  tremble."^"^ 
A  cancelled  passage  of  the  Adonais  describes  Hunt  thus: 

And   then   came   one   of   sweet   and   carnal   looks, 
Those   soft   smiles   to    his    dark    and    night-like    eyes 
Were  as   the   clear  and   ever-living  brooks 
Are  to   the   obscure   fountains   whence   they  rise, 

"Hunt,  Correspondence,  I,  p.  ii6,  141;  April  24,  1818,  and  September 
6,  1819.  Cf.  with  Works  of  Shelley,  VIII,  p.  121  ;  September  3,  1819. 
(Editor  says  dated  wrongly.) 

^  Works  of  Shelley,  VIII,  p.   127;   September  27,   1819. 

^Correspondence,  I,  p.  123;  August  4,  1818. 

100 "  Yq^  ^jji  ggg  Hunt — one  of  those  happy  souls 

Which  are  the  salt  of  the  earth,  and  without  whom 
This  world  would  smell  like  what  it  is — a  tomb ; 
Who   is   what   others   seem ;   his   room   no   doubt 
Is  still   adorned  by   many   a   cast   from   Shout, 
With   graceful   flowers   tastefully   placed   about. 
And  coronals   of  bay   from   ribbons   hung, 
And   brighter   wreaths   in    neat   disorder    flung, — 
The  gifts   of  the  most  learned  among  some   dozens 
Of  female   friends,   sisters-in-law   and   cousins. 
And  there  he   is  with  his  eternal  puns. 
Which  beat  the  dullest  brain  for  smiles,  like  duns 
Thundering  for  money  at  a  poet's  door ; 
Alas !   it  is  no   use  to   say  '  I'm  poor !  '  " 

'"  Mr.  Forman  thinks  that  it  may  be  part  of  the  original  draft  of 
Rosalind  and  Helen;  if  so,  it  is  still  a  very  close  approximation  of  Shelley's 
opinion  of  Hunt  {Works  of  Shelley,  III,  p.  403).  William  Rossetti  and 
Felix  Rabbe  think  that  it  was   addressed  to   Hunt. 


87 

Showing   how    pure    they    are ;    a    Paradise 

Of  happy  truth  upon  his   forehead  low 

Lay,   making  wisdom  lovely,  in  the   guise 

Of  earth-awakening  mom   upon  the  brow 

Of   star-deserted    heaven,    while    ocean    gleams   below, 

His  song,   though  very  sweet,  was  low   and  faint, 
A   single   strain — '°^ 

The  thirty-fifth  strophe  of  the  present  version  refers  to  Hunt. 
Shelley's  last  letter  had  reference  to  Hunt.^''^  His  last  lit- 
erary effort  was  a  poem  comparing  Hunt  to  a  firefly  and  wel- 
coming him  to  Italy,  just  as  Hunt's  last  letter  and  last  public 
utterance  bore  reference  to  Shelley — strange  coincidence,  but 
striking  testimony  to  their  mutual  devotion.  An  instance  of 
Shelley's  overestimation  of  Hunt's  ability  is  seen  in  a  passage 
where  he  says  that  Hunt  excels  in  tragedy  in  the  power  of 
delineating  passion  and,  what  is  more  necessary,  of  connecting 
and  developing  it,  "  the  last  an  incredible  effort  for  himself 
but  easy  for  Hunt."^***  He  greatly  valued  and  trusted  Hunt's 
affection,  at  times  calling  him  his  best^°^  and  his  only  friend.^"® 
H  the  tender  solicitude  and  veneration  of  a  beautiful  spirit  for 
a  man  of  vastly  inferior  abilities  seems  strange,  it  is  but  a 
witness  to  the  humility  of  true  genius. 

"-Wise's  edition  of  Adonais,  p.  2.     London,   1887. 

"=■  To  his  wife.     Work  of  Shelley,  VIII,  p.  288  ;  July  4,  1822. 

*°*  Nicoll  and  Wise,  Literary  Anecdotes,  p.  350  ;  April  5,  1820. 

"^  Hunt,  Correspondence ,  I,  p.  136.  Professor  George  Edward  Wood- 
berry  says  that  Shelley  had  the  "  kindest  feeling  of  gratitude  and  respect 
.  .  .  but    nothing    more "    towards    Hunt.     (Studies    in    Letters    and    Life, 

p.  153.) 

'^"'^  Ibid.,  I,  p.  158.  November  11,  1820.  Works  of  Shelley,  VIII,  p.  150; 
November  2Z,  1819. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

Byron's  Politics  and  Religion — His  sympathy  with  Hunt  in  prison — His 
impression  of  the  man — Hunt's  Defense  of  Byron  and  Criticism  of  his 
■vvorks — The  Liberal — Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries. 

It  is  not  strange  that  Lord  Byron,  son  of  an  English  father 
and  a  Scotch  mother,  born  of  a  long  line  of  adventurous  and 
warlike  sailors  and  illustrious  and  loyal  knights,  with  a  strain 
of  royalty  and  madness  on  one  side  and  eccentricity  and  im- 
morality on  the  other,  should  have  fallen  heir  in  an  unusual 
degree  to  a  nature  whose  virtues  and  vices  were  complex  and 
contradictory.  Its  singularities  are  nowhere  more  apparent 
than  in  the  mutations  of  his  friendships. 

Prior  to  his  acquaintance  with  Hunt,  Byron  had  taken  his 
seat  in  the  House  of  Lords  and  had  made  speeches  against  the 
framebreakers  of  Nottingham  and  in  behalf  of  Catholic  eman-  v 
cipation.  A  month  after  their  meeting  he  made  a  third  speech 
introducing  Major  Cartwright's  petition  for  reform  in  Parlia- 
ment. The  second  and  third  of  these  measures,  in  particular, 
were  warmly  advocated  by  The  Examiner,  with  which  paper  ^ 
Byron  was  familiar,  as  references  in  his  letters  show.  It  is 
therefore  not  hazardous  to  surmise  that  his  sympathy  with 
liberal  policies,  alien  to  his  Tory  blood  and  aristocratic  spirit, 
was  due,  in  part  at  least,  to  this  influence.  Byron's  political 
principles  on  the  whole  were  as  evanescent  and  intermittent  as 
a  will-o'-the-wisp.^  His  chief  tenets  were  the  assertion  of  the 
individual ;  antagonism  against  all  authority ;  a  striving  after  ^ 

^  Sir  Walter  Scott  has  given  a  good  estimate  of  them :  "  Our  sentiments 
agreed  a  good  deal,  except  on  the  subject  of  religion  and  politics,  upon 
neither  of  which  I  was  inclined  to  believe  that  Lord  Byron  entertained 
very  fixed  principles.  .  .  .  On  Politics  he  used  sometimes  to  express  a 
high  strain  of  what  is  now  called  Liberalism ;  but  it  appeared  to  me  that 
the  pleasure  that  it  afforded  him  as  a  vehicle  of  displaying  his  wit  and 
satire  against  individuals  in  office  was  at  the  bottom  of  his  habit  of 
thinking.  At  heart  I  would  have  termed  Byron  a  patrician  on  principle." 
(Moore,  Letters  and  Journals  of  Lord  Byron,  I,  p.  6i6.) 


89 

freedom.  Brandes,  Elze  and  Treitscke  agree  in  attributing  his 
political  enthusiasm  to  the  intense  passion  of  his  nature  rather 
than  to  his  moral  convictions.^  His  religious  convictions  were 
as  fugitive  as  his  political  and,  like  those  of  Hunt  and  other^ 
advanced  thinkers  of  the  age,  seem  to  have  been  without  defer- 
ence to  any  existing  creed  or  dogma.  At  his  gloomiest  mo- 
ments he  confessed  that  he  denied  nothing  but  doubted  every- 
thing. Hunt  says  of  Byron's  religion  that  he  "  did  not  know 
what  he  was.  .  .  .  He  was  a  Christian  by  education,  he  was  an 
infidel  by  reading.  He  was  a  Christian  by  habit,  but  he  was  no 
Christian  upon  reflection."^  The  phrase,  "  I  am  of  the  opposi- 
tion "  applies  to  his  religion  as  well  as  to  his  politics,  as  indeed 
it  serves  as  the  key-note  to  almost  every  action  of  his  life. 

Leigh  Hunt  has  given  a  characteristic  account  of  his  first 
sight  of  Byron  "  rehearsing  the  part  of  Leander,"  in  the  River 
Thames  sometime  before  he  went  to  Greece  in  1809: 

"  I  saw  nothing  in  Lord  Byron  at  that  time,  but  a  young  man,  who,  like 
myself,  had  written  a  bad  volume  of  poems  ;  and  though  I  had  sympathy 
with  him  on  this  account,  and  more  respect  for  his  rank  than  I  was  willing 
to  suppose,  my  sympathy  was  not  an  agreeable  one  ;  so,  contenting  myself 
with  seeing  his  lordship's  head  bob  up  and  down  in  the  water,  like  a  buoy, 
I  came  away.  Lord  Byron  when  he  afterwards  came  to  see  me  in  prison, 
was  pleased  to  regret  that  I  had  not  stayed.  He  told  me,  that  the  sight 
of  my  volume  at  Harrow  had  been  one  of  his  incentives  to  write  verses, 
and  that  he  had  had  the  same  passion  for  friendship  which  I  had  displayed 
in  it.  To  my  astonishment  he  quoted  some  of  the  lines,  and  would  not 
hear  me  speak  ill  of  them."* 

Hunt's  Juvenilia,  beyond  having  served  as  one  of  the  incen- 
tives to  the  writing  of  Byron's  Hours  of  Idleness,  does  not 
seem  to  have  affected  it.  For  Hunt's  undercurrent  of  friend- 
ship and  cheerfulness  were  substituted  Byron's  prevailing  notes 
of  amorousness  and  melancholy. 

The  actual  acquaintance  of  the.,  two  men  did  not  begin  until 
1813,  when  Thomas  Moore,  since  181 1  a  staunch  admirer  of 
Hunt's  political  courage  and  of  his  literary  talent,  and  one  of 
the  visitors  welcomed  to  Surrey  Gaol,  mentioned  the  circum- 

^  Hancock,  The  French  Revolution  and  English  Poets,  p.  84. 
^  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries,  p.  128. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  I  ;  Autobiography,  H,  p.  85. 


90 

stances  of  his  imprisonment  to  Lord  Byron,  likewise  a  sympa- 
thizer with  the  attitude  of  The  Examiner  towards  the  Prince 
Regent.  Mr.  Cordy  Jeafifreson^  thinks  that  it  was  this  reckless 
sympathy  with  the  libeller  of  the  Prince  Regent  that  led  Byron 
to  reprint  with  The  Corsair,  eight  lines  addressed  in  1812  to 
the  Princess  Charlotte,  Weep,  daughter  of  a  Royal  Line.  The 
retaliation  of  one  of  the  Tory  papers  goaded  Byron  to  write 
in  return  an  article  which  strongly  resembles  Hunt's  famous 
libel*'  on  the  Prince  Regent.  Byron  expressed  a  wish  to  call 
on  Hunt  with  Moore,  and  a  visit  followd  on  May  20,  1813.^ 
Five  days  later  Hunt  wrote : 

"  I  have  had  Lord  B.  here  again.  He  came  on  Sunday,  by  himself,  in  a 
very  frank,  unceremonious  manner,  and  knowing  what  I  wanted  for  my 
poem  [Story  of  Rimini'\  brought  me  the  last  new  Travels  in  Italy  in  two 
quarto  volumes,  of  which  he  requests  my  acceptance,  with  the  air  of  one 
who  did  not  seem  to  think  himself  conferring  the  least  obligation.  This 
will  please  you.  It  strikes  me  that  he  and  I  shall  become  friends,  literally 
and  cordially  speaking :  there  is  something  in  the  texture  of  his  mind  and 
feelings  that  seems  to  resemble  mine  to  a  thread ;  I  think  we  are  cut  out 
of  the  same  piece,  only  a  little  different  wear  may  have  altered  our  re- 
spective naps  a  little." ' 

With  the  pride  of  a  sycophant  in  the  presence  of  a  lord  Hunt 
y/  relates  that  Byron  would  not  let  the  footman  carry  the  books 
but  gave  "you  to  understand  that  he  was  prouder  of  being  a 
friend  and  a  man  of  letters  than  a  lord.  It  was  thus  by  flat- 
tering one's  vanity  he  persuaded  us  of  his  own  freedom  from 
it :  for  he  could  see  very  well,  that  I  had  more  value  for  lords 
than  I  supposed."''  In  June  of  the  same  year  Hunt  invited 
Byron,  Moore  and  Mitchell  to  dine  with  him  in  prison.  Among 
several  others  who  came  in  during  the  evening  was  Mr.  John 
Scott,  later  a  severe  critic  of  Byron  in  The  Champion}^  Many 
years  after  Moore,  in  his  Life  of  Byron,  wrote  of  the  gather- 
ing with  venom,  recalling  Scott  as  an  assailant  of  Byron's 

°  The  Real  Lord  Byron,  I,  p.  277. 

*  Letters  and  Journals,  III,  pp.  29-31.      The  article  was  not  published. 
^  Nichol,  Life  of  Bryon,  p.  84,  incorrectly  gives  1812  as  the  date. 

*  Correspondence,  I,  p.  88,  May  25,  1813. 
^Autobiography,  II,  p.  85. 

'°  The  Champion,  April  7,  14,  21,  18 16. 


91 

"living  fame,  while  another  [Hunt]  less  manful,  would  reserve 
the  cool  venom  for  his  grave."^^ 

Byron  esteemed  Hunt  greatly  during  the  first  year  of  their 
acquaintance.  His  advances  show  a  desire  for  intimacy  which 
goes  far  toward  contradicting  the  statements  sometimes  made 
that  the  overtures  were  on  Hunt's  side  only.^-  Byron  ex- 
pressed himself  thus  at  the  time : 

"  Hunt  is  an  extraordinary  character  and  not  exactly  of  the  present  age. 
He  reminds  me  more  of  the  Pym  and  Hampden  times — much  talent,  great  \_^ 
independence  of  spirit,  and  an  austere,  yet  not  repulsive,  aspect.  If  he 
goes  on  qualis  ab  incepto,  I  know  few  men  who  will  deserve  more  praise 
or  obtain  it.  I  must  go  and  see  him  again — a  rapid  succession  of  ad- 
ventures since  last  summer,  added  to  some  serious  uneasiness  and  business, 
have  interrupted  our  acquaintance  ;  but  he  is  a  man  worth  knowing  ;  and 
though  for  his  own  sake,  I  wish  him  out  of  prison,  I  like  to  study  character 
in  such  situations.  He  has  been  unshaken  and  will  continue  so.  I  don't 
think  him  deeply  versed  in  life : — he  is  the  bigot  of  virtue  (not.  religion) 
and  enamoured  of  the  beauty  of  that  '  empty  name,'  as  the  last  breath  of 
Brutus  pronounced  and  every  day  proves  it.  He  is  perhaps,  a  little 
opinionated,  as  all  men  who  are  the  center  of  circles,  wide  or  narrow — 
the  Sir  Oracles — in  whose  name  two  or  three  are  gathered  together — 
must  be,  and  as  even  Johnson  was :  but  withal,  a  valuable  man,  and  less 
vain  than  success  and  even  the  consciousness  of  preferring  '  the  right  to 
the  expedient,'  might  excuse." 

December  2,  1813,  he  wrote  to  Hunt:  "  It  is  my  wish  that  our 
acquaintance,  or,  if  you  please  to  accept  it,  friendship,  may  be 
permanent.  ...  I  have  a  thorough  esteem  for  that  indepen- 
dence of  spirit  which  you  have  maintained  with  sterling  talent, 
and  at  the  expense  of  some  sufifering."^^  Cordial  intercourse 
between  the  two  men  continued  after  Hunt's  removal  from 
Surrey  Gaol  to  lodgings  in  Edgeware  Road,  where  Byron  be- 
came one  of  his  most  frequent  visitors  and  correspondents. 
In  the  Hunt  household  Byron  laid  aside  his  ordinary  reserve. 
There  are  records  of  his  riding  the  children's  rocking  horse; 
of  presents  of  game ;  loans  of  books ;  letters  presented  from  a 
Paris  correspondent  for  The  Examiner ;  and  gifts  of  boxes  and 
tickets  for  Drury  Lane  Theatre,  of  which  he  was  one  of  the 

"  Letters  and  Journals  of  Lord  Byron,  p.  402. 

'^  Byron,  Letters  and  Journals,  II,  p.  157,  December  i,  1813. 

^^  Ibid.,  n,  pp.  296-297. 


92 

managers.  This  last  Hunt  would  not  accept  for  fear  of  sac- 
rificing his  critical  independence.  In  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of 
His  Contemporaries,  Hunt  claims  that  this  familiarity  pro- 
ceeded from  an  "  instinct  of  immeasureable  distance."^* 

It  was  not  until  Byron's  matrimonial  difficulties  in  1816  that 
Hunt,  inert  and  depressed  from  his  long  confinement,  bestirred 
himself  to  return  a  single  one  of  the  calls.  Byron's  separation 
from  his  wife  in  1816  and  the  subsequent  scandal  aroused  in 
Hunt  that  instinctive  protection  and  active  loyalty  for  friends 
abused,  already  discussed  in  a  review  of  his  relations  with 
Keats  and  Shelley.  The  conjugal  troubles  and  libertinism  of 
the  Prince  Regent  had  brought  forth  only  scorn  and  vitupera- 
tion from  the  editor  of  The  Examiner,  but  difficulties  of  equal 
notoriety  at  closer  range  in  the  lives  of  his  friends  evoked  only 
sympathy  and  protection.  He  asserted  that  there  was  no 
positive  knowledge  as  to  the  cause  of  the  trouble  and  much 
depraved  speculation,  envy  and  falsehood,  yet  "had  he  [Byron] 
been  as  the  scandal-mongers  represented  him,  we  should  never- 
theless, if  we  thought  our  arm  worth  his  using,  have  stood  by 
him  in  his  misfortunes  to  the  last."^^  A  prophecy  of  a  near 
reconciliation  and  a  too-gushing  picture  of  renewed  domes- 
ticity are  somewhat  grotesque  in  the  light  of  later  events.  For 
this  defense  Byron  was  very  grateful.  January  12,  1822,  he 
wrote  that  Scott,  Jeffrey  and  Leigh  Hunt  "  were  the  only  lit- 
erary men  of  numbers  whom  I  know  (and  some  of  whom  I 
have  served,)  who  dared  venture  even  an  anonymous  word  in 
my  favour,  just  then  .  .  .  the  third  was  under  no  kind  of  obli- 
gation to  me."^^  Hunt's  opinion  in  the  matter  underwent  a 
transformation  after  the  fateful  Italian  visit ;  he  then  declared 
that  Byron  wooed  with  genius,  married  for  money,  and  strove 
for  a  reconciliation  because  of  pique. ^' 

The  Story  of  Rimini,  which  had  been  submitted  to  Byron 
from  time  to  time  and  which  was  dedicated  to  him,  appeared 
likewise  in  1816.  Byron  seems  to  have  accepted  the  familiar 
tone  of  the  inscription  at  the  time  in  all  good  faith  "  as  a 

"Page  36.  ^^The  Examiner,  April  21,  1816. 

^'^  Letters  and  Journals,  VI,  pp.  2-3. 

"Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries,  p.  6. 


93 

public  compliment  and  a  private  kindness  "^^  although  Black- 
wood's of  March,  1828,  states,  perhaps  not  seriously,  that 
Byron  in  his  copy  had  substituted  for  Hunt's  name  "  impudent 
varlet."  As  late  as  April  11,  1817,  Byron  wrote  from  Italy 
that  he  expected  to  return  to  Venice  by  Ravenna  and  Rimini 
that  he  might  take  notes  of  the  scenery  for  Hunt.^^ 

But  a  letter  to  Moore  from  Venice,  June  i,  1818,  seems  to 
mark  a  disillusionment  on  the  part  of  Byron : 

"  Hunt's  letter  is  probably  the  exact  piece  of  vulgar  coxcombry  that  you 
might  expect  from  his  situation.  He  is  a  good  man  with  some  practical 
element  in  his  chaos,  but  spoilt  by  the  Christ  Church  Hospital  and  a 
Sunday  newspaper  to  say  nothing  of  the  Surrey  Gaol,  which  converted  him 
into  a  martyr.  ...  Of  my  friend  Hunt,  I  have  already  said  that  he  is 
anything  but  vulgar  in  his  manners  [a  statement  repeated  again  in  1822^°]  ; 
and  of  his  disciples,  therefore,  I  will  not  judge  of  their  manners  from 
their  verses.  They  may  be  honourable  and  gentlemanly  men  for  what  I 
know ;  but  the  latter  quality  is  studiously  excluded  from  their  publica- 
tions.""^ 

Hunt  did  not  see  or  hear  from  Byron  from  1817  until  1821. 
No  further  mention  of  Hunt  occurs  in  Byron's  writings  dur- 
ing this  period  except  the  reference  to  his  influence  on  Barry 
Cornwall's  Sicilian  Story  and  Marcian  Colonna,^-  and  another 
to  the  Cockney  School  in  Byron's  controversy  with  Bowles. 
In  explanation  of  this  break  in  the  intercourse  Hunt  said,  in 
1828,  that  "  Byron  had  become  not  very  fond  of  his  reforming 
acquaintances."-^ 

Hunt's  criticism  of  Byron's  writings  was  not  an  important  l^ 
factor  in  his  early  literary  development,  as  was  the  case  with 
Shelley  and  Keats.  Yet  it  deserves  brief  attention.  The  Ex- 
aminer of  October  i8,  1812,  contained  the  address  of  Byron 
on  the  opening  of  the  Drury  Lane  Theatre  and  a  commenda- 
tion of  its  "  natural  domestic  touch  "  and  of  its  independence. 

''  Letters  and  Journals,  HI,  p.  265. 

^' In   1820   Byron  translated  the  Rimini   episode  of  the  Divine   Comedy, 

^  Trelawney,  Recollections  of  the  Last  Days  of  Shelley  and  Byron,  p.  109. 

^'^  Letters  and  Journals,  V,  pp.  590-591. 

'^Letters  and  Journals,  V,  p.  217.  This  passage  is  omitted  from  the  letter 
in  which  it  occurs  in  Moore's  Letters  and  Journals  of  Lord  Byron,  II, 
p.  437. 

^  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries,  p.  8. 


94 

Hunt's  Feast  of  the  Poets  as  it  appeared  first  in  The  Reflector 
contained  no  mention  of  Byron.  The  separate  edition  of 
1814  devoted  seven  pages  of  the  added  notes  to  a  wordy  dis- 
cussion of  his  work  and  to  personal  advice.  Byron  in  a 
letter  of  February  9,  1814,  thanked  Hunt  for  the  "  handsome 
note."  The  next  mentions  of  Bryon  were  in  The  Examiner: 
a  notice  of  his  ode  on  Napoleon  April  24,  1814;  Illustrations 
of  Lord  Byron's  Works  on  September  4  of  the  same  year; 
an  elegy,  Oh  Snatched  Aivay  in  Beauty's  Bloom,  April  23, 
181 5;  The  Renegade's  Feelings  Among  the  Tombs  of  Heroes, 
March  3,  1816;  and  finally,  an  announcement  of  an  opera 
founded  on  The  Corsair,  August  31,  1817.  A  review  of 
the  first  and  second  cantos  of  Don  Juan  appeared  in  The 
Examiner  of  October  31,  18 19.  Byron's  extraordinary  variety 
and  sudden  transition  of  mood,  his  power  in  wielding  satire 
and  humor,  his  knowledge  of  human  nature  in  its  highest  and 
lowest  passions,  his  contribution  to  the  mock-heroic  and  the 
sincere,  the  "strain  of  rich  and  deep  beauty  "  in  the  descrip- 
tions were  pointed  out.  Any  immoral  tendency  is  denied : 
"  The  fact  is  at  the  bottom  of  these  questions,  that  many 
things  are  made  vicious  which  are  not  so  by  nature ;  and  many 
things  made  virtuous,  which  are  only  so  by  calling  and  agree- 
ment ;  and  it  is  on  the  horns  of  this  self-created  dilemma,  that 
society  is  continually  writhing  and  getting  desperate !  "  The 
Examiner  of  August  26,  1821  containing  a  critique  of  the 
third  and  fourth  cantos  of  Don  Juan,  condemned  the  "  care- 
less contempt  of  canting  moralists."  January  23,  1820,  there 
was  a  notice  in  The  Examiner  telling  of  Byron's  munificence 
to  a  shoemaker;  in  comment  The  Examiner  said:  "  His  lord- 
ship's virtues  are  his  own.  His  frailties  have  been  made  for 
him,  in  more  respects  than  one,  by  the  faults  and  folHes  of 
society."  January  21,  1822,  appeared  a  reprint  of  My  Boat 
Is  on  the  Shore;  April  22,  the  two  stanzas  from  Childe  Harold 
beginning,  Italia,  Oh!  Italia;  April  29,  Byron's  Letters  on 
Bowles's  Strictures  on  Pope;  May  26,  a  review  of  two  of 
Bowles's  letters  to  Byron ;  July  29,  an  article  entitled  Sketches 
of  the  Living  Poets.-*     The  last  gave  a  biographical  account 

^  Hunt   wrongly  gives    Byron's   date   of   birth   as    1791.      The   article   is 
accompanied  with  a  woodcut. 


95 

of  Byron.  The  general  traits  of  his  poety  were  said  to  be 
passion,  humour,  and  learning.  It  criticized  the  narrative 
poems  as  "  too  melodramatic,  hasty  and  vague."  Hunt's  sum-  [/ 
mary  of  the  dramas  and  of  Don  Juan  shows  excellent  judg- 
ment :  "  For  the  drama,  whatever  good  passages  such  a  writer  ^^ 
will  always  put  forth,  we  hold  that  he  has  no  more  quali- 
fications than  we  have ;  his  tendency  being  to  spin  every 
thing  out  of  his  own  perceptions,  and  colour  it  with  his  own 
eye.  His  Don  Juan  is  perhaps  his  best  work,  and  the  one 
by  which  he  will  stand  or  fall  with  readers  who  see  beyond 
time  and  toilets.  It  far  surpasses,  in  our  opinion,  all  the 
Italian  models  on  which  it  is  founded,  not  excepting  the  far 
famed  Secchia  Rapita."^^  On  June  2,  1822,  The  Examiner 
reviewed  Cain.  The  article  is  chiefly  a  discussion  of  the 
origin  of  evil.  The  issue  of  September  30  contained  a  reprint 
of  America;  that  of  November  18  denied  Byron's  author- 
ship of  Anastasius.  From  July  5,  1823,  to  November  29  of 
the  same  year,  there  appeared  in  the  Literary  Examiner 
friendly  criticisms  of  the  sixth,  seventh,  eighth,  ninth,  tenth, 
eleventh,  twelfth,  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  cantos  of  Don 
Juan.  The  reviews  consisted  chiefly  of  extracts  and  a  sum- 
mary of  the  narrative. 

The   Liberal. 

A  letter  from  Lord  Byron  dated  December  25,  1820,  had 
proposed  to  Thomas  Moore  to  set  up  secretly,  on  their  return 
to  London,  a  weekly  newspaper   for  the  purpose   of  giving 

"  the  age  some  new  lights  upon  policy,  poesy,  biography,  criticism,  morality, 
theology,  and  all  other  ism,  ality  and  ology  whatsoever.  Why,  man,  if  we 
were  to  take  to  this  in  good  earnest,  your  debts  would  be  paid  off  in  a 
twelvemonth,  and  by  dint  of  a  little  diligence  and  practice,  I  doubt  not 
that  we  could  distance  the  common-place  blackguards  who  have  so  long 
disgraced  common  sense  and  the  common  reader.  They  have  no  merit 
but  practice  and  imprudence,  both  of  which  we  may  acquire  ;  and,  as  for 
talent  and  culture,  the  devil's  in't  if  such  proofs  as  we  have  given  of  both 
can't  furnish  out  something  better  than  the  '  funeral  baked  meats  '  which 
have  coldly  set  forth  the  breakfast  table  of  Great  Britain  for  so  many 
years."  "* 

^  See  Blackzvood's,  X,  pp,  286,   730. 
^Letters  and  Journals,  V,  pp.  143-144. 


96 

Moore  cautiously  refused  the  offer  and  the  idea  lay  dormant 
in  Byron's  mind  until  he  met  Shelley  at  Ravenna  in  1821. 
He  then  proposed  that  they  should  establish  a  radical  paper 
with  Leigh  Hunt  as  editor,  the  three  to  be  equal  partners. 
Power,  money,  and  notoriety  were  Byron's  chief  objects.  He 
frankly  acknowledged  a  desire  for  enormous  gains.  He  de- 
signed to  use  his  proprietory  privileges  to  publish  those  of  his 
writings  that  Murray  dared  not.  At  the  same  time  Byron  had, 
without  doubt,  a  desire  to  reform  home  government  and  to 
repay  Hunt  for  his  public  defense  in  1816.-"  He  may  have 
wished  to  please  Shelley  by  asking  Hunt.-*  Undoubtedly  he 
valued  Hunt's  wide  journalistic  experience.  Moore  asserts 
that  in  extending  the  invitation,  Byron  inconsistently  admitted 
Hunt  "  not  to  any  degree  of  confidence  or  intimacy  but  to  a 
declared  fellowship  of  fame  and  interest."-^  This,  like  other 
of  Moore's  statements  regarding  Hunt,  is  not  very  plausible  in 
view  of  the  past  intimacy. 

The  most  discussed  question  regarding  Byron's  motives  in 
inviting  Hunt  is  the  extent  of  his  relation  to  The  Examiner 
at  that  time,  and  Byron's  knowledge  of  it.  Trelawny  states 
that  when  Byron  "consented  to  join  Leigh  Hunt  and  others 
in  writing  for  the  '  Liberal,'  I  think  his  principal  inducement 
was  in  the  belief  that  John  and  Leigh  Hunt  were  proprietors 
of  the  '  Examiner ' ; — so  when  Leigh  Hunt  at  Pisa  told  him 
that  he  was  no  longer  connected  with  that  paper,  Byron  was 
taken  aback,  finding  that  Hunt  would  be  entirely  dependent 
upon  the  success  of  their  hazardous  project,  while  he  him- 
self would  be  deprived  of  that  on  which  he  had  set  his  heart, — 
the  use  of  a  weekly  paper  in  great  circulation."^"'  Moore 
heard  indirectly  in  1821  that  Byron,  Shelley  and  Hunt  were 
to  "conspire  together"  in  The  Examiner^^ — a  plan  nowhere 
mentioned  in  the  writings  of  the  three  men  concerned  and  most 
unlikely.     What   Trelawney  "  thought "   conflicts   with   what 

"  Medwin,  Journal  of  the  Conversations  of  Lord  Byron,  p.  186. 
^Jeaffreson,  The  Real  Lord  Byron,  II,  p.  186,  says  that  Byron  through 
Shelley's  mediation  could  secure  Hunt  as  editor. 

''^  Ibid.,  Letters  and  Journals  of  Lord  Byron,  II,  p.  626. 
^"Recollections  of  the  Last  Days  of  Shelley  and  Byron,  p.  157. 
*'  See  p.   103. 


97 

Moore  "heard."  The  suggestions  of  both  are  open  to  doubt. 
Byron  was  most  assuredly  the  projector  of  The  Liberal  and 
did  not  "consent  to  join  Leigh  Hunt  and  others."  Besides,  ^ 
granting  that  Trelawney's  opinion  was  based  on  a  statement 
of  Byron's,  even  that  would  not  be  convincing,  since  Byron 
made  a  number  of  mis-statements  about  the  matter  after  he 
grew  weary  of  it.  Questionable  as  the  assertion  is,  it  has 
been  made  the  basis  of  accusations  against  Hunt  of  deliberate 
deceit  and  of  breach  of  contract.  Had  it  been  true  that  there  was 
an  understanding  of  cooperation  between  the  two  papers,  Byron 
and  Moore  would  have  made  much  of  the  charge.  Trelaw- 
ney's opinion,  first  noticed  by  Blackwood's  in  March,  1828, 
has  been  elaborated  by  Jeaffreson,^^  and  accepted  by  Leslie 
Stephen^^  and  Kent.^*  Elze,  who  seems  to  have  labored  under 
the  impression  that  Harold  Skimpole  was  a  faithful  portrait- 
ure of  Hunt,  states  that  his  connection  with  Byron  began  with 
a  falsehood.^^  R.  B.  Johnson  says,  in  defense  of  Hunt,  that 
the  accusation  "  is  quite  unreasonable  and  contrary  to  all  the 
evidence."^®  Monkhouse  thinks  that  it  is  doubtful  if  Byron 
reckoned  on  the  support  of  the  London  paper.^^  J.  Ashcroft 
Noble  says  that  Byron  had  much  to  say  about  the  Hunts  in 
his  letters,  "  and  made  the  most  of  all  kinds  of  trivial  or 
imaginary  grievances ;  it  is  simply  incredible  that  had  a  griev- 
ance of  such  reality  and  magnitude  as  this  really  existed  he 
would  have  refrained  from  mentioning  it."  As  proof  against 
it,  he  quotes  Byron's  belief  in  Hunt's  honesty  as  late  as  Sep- 
tember 1822;  and  he  points  out  the  ''obvious  absurdity  of  the 
idea  that  in  the  year  1822  a  weekly  newspaper  could  be  con- 
ducted successfully,  or  at  all,  by  an  editor  in  Pisa  or  Genoa. "^^ 
The  strong  probability,  gathered  from  all  the  extant  evidence,  . 
is  that  Byron  and  Shelley,  in  inviting  Hunt  to  Italy,  expected, 
and  very  naturally,  that  he  would  continue  to  share  in  the 
profits  of  The  Examiner.     Shelley,  indeed,  in  a  letter  dated 

^-The  Real  Lord  Byron,  II,  p.  i86. 

*'  Dictionary  of  National  Biography. 

**  Leigh  Hunt  as  Poet  and  Essayist,  p.  30. 

^^  Life  of  Byron,  pp.  266-267.  "'^  Leigh  Hunt,  p.  37,  note. 

"Life  of  Leigh  Hunt,  p.   154. 

^  The  Sonnet  in  England,  pp.   118-119. 


98 

as  late  as  January  25,  1822,  urged  Hunt  not  to  leave  England 
without  a  regular  income  from  that  journaP" — an  injunction 
which  Hunt  unfairly  disregarded.  It  is  also  likely  that  his 
connection  with  The  Examiner  was  one  of  Byron's  reasons  in 
extending  the  partnership  to  include  Hunt.  But  it  is  practi- 
cally certain  that  there  was  no  contract  nor  even  understanding 
as  regards  the  cooperation  of  The  Liberal  and  the  London 
paper.  The  question  does  not  therefore,  involve  Hunt's  honor 
at  all.  If  Byron  expected  to  profit  by  the  influence  of  The 
Examiner,  his  silence  shows  a  manliness  that  Noble  does  not 
credit  him  with. 

Hunt,  in  accepting  Byron's  offer,  was  actuated  by  motives 
both  selfish  and  unselfish.  The  fine  of  £1,000  imposed  at  the 
time  of  his  conviction  of  libel  was  not  all  paid ;  The  Indicator 
had  been  abandoned ;  The  Examiner  was  on  its  last  legs ;  his 
health  was  broken  by  overwork  undertaken  in  the  effort  not  to 
call  upon  his  friends  for  aid  ;*"  an  invalid  wife  and  seven 
children  were  to  be  supported  by  his  pen ;  his  brother  John  was 
in  prison.  From  January,  1821,  to  August  of  the  same  year 
he  had  been  unable  to  write.  In  accepting  Byron's  offer  he 
thought  to  recover  his  health  in  a  southern  climate,  to  regain 
his  political  influence  which  had  been  on  the  decrease  during 
the  last  four  or  five  years,  and  at  the  same  time  to  aid  aggres- 
sively the  liberal  movement.*^  Moreover,  he  was  flattered  im- 
mensely by  the  prospective  public  association  with  Lord  Byron. 
He  had  little  to  lose  and  a  prospect  of  large  gain.  Hunt 
should  have  weighed  more  gravely  such  a  step  before  he  em- 
barked on  such  a  hazardous  venture  with  so  large  a  family, 
but,  with  a  buoyancy  and  irresponsibility  in  practical  affairs 
peculiar  to  himself,  he  clutched  at  the  new  proposition  as  a 
way  out  of  all  difficulties  and  did  not  look  beyond  immediate 
necessities.  He  pictured  himself  and  his  family  healthy  and 
wealthy  in  a  land  he  had  always  sighed  for.  If  the  skies 
lowered,  he  fancied  Shelley  always  at  hand.  His  description 
of  preparations  for  the  voyage  is  as  airy  as  his  pocketbook  was 
light:   "My   family,   therefore,   packed   up    such   goods    and 

"'  Works  of  Shelley,  VIII,  p.  255. 

*^  Correspondence  I,  p.  161.  *^  Autobiography,  II,  p.  59. 


99 

chattels  as  they  had  a  regard  for,  my  books  in  particular,  and 
we  took,  with  strange  new  thoughts  and  feelings,  but  in  high 
expectation,  our  journey  by  sea."*- 

The  part  Shelley  played  in  the  invitation  to  Hunt  is  more 
difficult  of  interpretation.  The  original  proposition  to  become 
an  equal  partner  in  the  transaction  he  never  seriously  enter- 
tained. He  consented  to  become  a  contributor  only.  His 
reasons  for  his  refusal  he  gave  to  others,  but,  for  fear  of 
endangering  Hunt's  prospects,  withheld  from  Byron ;  for  the 
same  reason  he  dissembled  at  times  concerning  his  real  feel- 
ings. Yet  he  was  equally  responsible  with  Byron  in  extend- 
ing the  invitation  to  Hunt,  as  will  be  shown  later.  Although 
Shelley  could  not  have  foreseen  the  full  consequences  of  such 
a  course  of  action,  he  was  deficient  in  frankness  toward  Byron 
and  undoubtedly  sacrificed  him  somewhat  in  the  transaction  to 
his  affection  for  Hunt.  While  Byron  continued  to  hold  the 
highest  opinion  of  Shelley,  between  the  time  of  their  meeting  in 
Switzerland  and  at  Ravenna,  Shelley  had  experienced  three 
separate  revulsions  of  feeling."*^  At  the  time  in  question  his 
distrust  had  returned. 

^Autobiography,  II,  p.  59. 

**  After  Shelley's  meeting  with  Byron  in  Switzerland  in  1816,  before 
they  met  again  in  Venice,  there  had  been  a  lapse  of  two  years  bridged 
only  by  a  not  always  pleasant  correspondence  relating  to  Allegra,  Byron's 
natural  daughter.  Shelley  occupied  the  unenviable  position  of  mediator 
between  him  and  Jane  Clairmont,  the  child's  mother.  Yet  when  the  two 
men  met  again  in  August,  18 18,  it  was  at  first  on  the  terms  recorded  in 
Julian  and  Maddalo.  Byron's  influence  served  as  a  stimulus  to  this  and 
to  other  poems  of  the  same  period.  By  December  of  that  year  Shelley's 
opinion  of  Byron  had  changed ;  on  the  22d,  he  wrote  to  Peacock  of 
Childe  Harold  in  terms  that  show  how  quickly  his  views  could  alter : 
"  The  spirit  in  which  it  is  written,  is,  if  insane,  the  most  wicked  and 
mischievous  insanity  that  was  ever  given  forth.  It  is  a  kind  of  obstinate 
and  self-willed  folly,  in  which  he  hardens  himself.  I  remonstrated  with 
him  in  vain  on  the  tone  of  mind  from  which  such  a  view  of  things  alone 
arises.  .  .  .  He  (Byron)  associates  with  wretches  who  seem  to  have 
lost  the  gait  and  physiognomy  of  man,  and  who  do  not  scruple  to  avow 
practices,  which  are  not  only  not  named,  but  I  believe  seldom  even  con- 
ceived in  England.  He  says  he  disapproves,  but  he  endures.  He  is 
heartily  and  deeply  discontented  with  himself;  and  contemplating  in  the 
distorted  mirror  of  his  own  thoughts  the  nature  and  destiny  of  man,  what 


100 

Hunt's  pecuniary  troubles  made  their  relations  still  more  diffi- 
cult. This  state  of  affairs  between  Byron  and  Shelley  must 
have  given  Hunt  great  concern,  and  Shelley  suspecting  his 

can  he  behold  but  objects  of  contempt  and  despair?  But  that  he  is  a 
great  poet,  I  think  the  address  to  Ocean  proves.  And  he  has  a  certain 
degree  of  candour  while  you  talk  to  him,  but  unfortunately  it  does  not 
outlast  your  departure.  No,  I  do  not  doubt,  and  for  his  own  sake,  I 
ought  to  hope,  that  his  present  career  must  soon  end  in  some  violent 
circumstance."     {Works  of  Shelley,  VIII,  pp.  80-81.) 

From  the  close  of  i8i8  until  1821,  they  were  again  separated.  Their 
correspondence,  as  previously,  related  chiefly  to  Allegra  and  was  of  a  still 
less  agreeable  nature.  Byron  had  refused  to  deal  directly  with  Jane 
Clairmont  and  all  communications  had  to  pass  through  Shelley's  hands. 
In  the  interval,  as  though  in  retaliation,  Byron  had  believed  the  Shiloh 
story,  a  fabrication  by  a  nurse  of  the  Shelleys  that  Jane  Clairmont  was 
Shelley's  mistress,  but  he  does  not  seem  to  have  condemned  such  a  state 
of  affairs.  (Letters  and  Journals,  V,  p.  86,  October,  1820.)  Yet  he  testi- 
fied in  his  letters  his  great  admiration  of  Shelley's  poetry  (Ibid.,  VI,  p. 
387),  and  after  his  death  he  called  him  "  The  best  and  least  selfish  man  I 
ever  knew."  (Ibid.,  VI,  p.  98  ;  August  3,  1822.)  But  before  1821,  a  rever- 
sal of  the  opinion  formed  in  Shelley's  mind  at  the  time  of  Byron's  Venetian 
excesses,  came  about.  November  11,  1820,  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Hunt:  "His 
indecencies,  too,  both  against  sexual  nature,  and  against  human  nature  in 
general,  sit  very  awkwardly  upon  him.  He  only  affects  the  libertine ; 
he  is,  really,  a  very  amiable,  friendly  and  agreeable  man,  I  hear."  (Hunt, 
Correspondence,  I,  p.  139.)  This  corroborates  Thornton  Hunt's  state- 
ment that  Byron  had  risen  in  Shelley's  estimation  before  1821  and  that 
otherwise  The  Liberal  would  never  have  been  started.  (Atlantic  Monthly, 
February,  1863.) 

At  Byron's  invitation  they  met  again  in  Ravenna.  Shelley's  letters  dated 
from  there  show  unstinted  admiration  of  Byron's  genius  and  of  the  man 
himself.  He  wrote  in  August,  1821,  that  he  was  living  a  "life  totally 
the  reverse  of  that  which  he  led  at  Venice.  .  .  .  (Works  of  Shelley, 
VIII,  p.  211,  August  7,  1821.)  L.  B.  is  greatly  improved  in  every  respect. 
In  genius,  in  temper,  in  moral  views,  in  health,  in  happiness.  .  .  .  He 
has  had  mischievous  passions,  but  these  he  seems  to  have  subdued,  and 
he  is  becoming  what  he  should  be,  a  virtuous  man.  .  .  .  (Ibid.,  VIII,  p. 
217,  August  10,  1821.)  Lord  Byron  and  I  are  excellent  friends,  and  were 
I  reduced  to  poverty,  or  were  I  a  writer  who  had  no  claims  to  a  higher 
station  than  I  possess — or  did  I  possess  a  higher  than  I  deserve,  we 
should  appear  in  all  things  as  such,  and  I  would  freely  ask  him  any 
favour.  Such  is  not  now  the  case.  The  daemon  of  mistrust  and  pride 
lurks  between  two  persons  in  our  station,  poisoning  the  freedom  of  our 
intercourse.  This  is  a  tax  and  a  heavy  one,  which  we  must  pay  for 
being  human."      Of   Don  Juan   he   wrote:   "It   sets   him   not   only   above, 


101 

distress  wrote  March  2,  1822 :  "  The  aspect  of  affairs  has 
somewhat  changed  since  the  date  of  that  in  which  I  expressed 
a  repugnance  to  a  continuance  of  intimacy  with  Lord  Byron 
as  close  as  that  which  now  exists ;  at  least  it  has  changed  so  far 
as  regards  you  and  the  intended  journal."** 

In  January,  1821,  Mrs.  Hunt  wrote  Mary  Shelley,  begging 

but  far  above,  all  the  poets  of  the  day — every  word  is  stamped  with 
immortality.  I  despair  of  rivalling  Lord  Byron,  as  well  I  may,  and  there 
is  no  other  with  whom  it  is  worth  contending.  (Ibid.,  VIII,  p.  219,  August 
10,  1821.)  During  the  visit  Shelley  served  as  ambassador  to  the  Countess 
Guiccioli  in  persuading  her  not  to  go  to  Switzerland,  and  in  the  same 
capacity  to  Byron  in  the  arrangement  of  Allegra's  affairs.  It  was  then 
settled  that  Byron  should  reside  for  the  winter  at  Pisa.  Shelley  had 
misgivings  about  such  an  arrangement  on  his  own  and  on  Miss  Clair- 
mont's  account,  for  he  had  previously  intended  to  settle  in  the  same 
vicinity.  He  finally  decided  not  to  let  it  make  any  difference  in  his 
plans.  In  January,  1822,  Shelley  wrote  from  Pisa  to  Peacock:  "Lord 
Byron  is  established  here,  and  we  are  his  constant  companions.  No  small 
relief  this,  after  the  dreary  solitude  of  the  understanding  and  the  imagina- 
tion in  which  we  passed  the  first  years  of  our  expatriation,  yoked  to  all 
sorts  of  miseries  and  discomforts.  ...  if  you  before  thought  him  a 
great  poet,  what  is  your  opinion  now  that  you  have  read  Cain?"  (Works 
of  Shelley,  VIII,  p.  249;  January  11,  1822.)  During  the  same  month  he 
wrote  to  John  Gisborne :  "  What  think  you  of  Lord  Byron  now  ?  Space 
wondered  less  at  the  swift  and  fair  creations  of  God,  when  he  grew  weary 
of  vacancy,  than  I  at  this  spirit  of  an  angel  in  the  mortal  paradise  of  a 
decaying  body."     (Ibid.,  VIII,  p.  251,  January,  1822.) 

A  letter  to  Leigh  Hunt  gives  the  first  intimation  of  the  return  of  the  ill- 
feeling  toward  Byron :  "  Past  circumstances  between  Lord  B.  and  me  render 
it  impossible  that  I  should  accept  any  supply  from  him  for  my  own  use,  or 
that  I  should  ask  for  yours  if  the  contribution  could  be  supposed  in  any  man- 
ner to  relieve  me,  or  to  do  what  I  could  otherwise  have  done."  (Works  of 
Shelley,  VIII,  p.  253,  January  25,  1822.)  This  referred  to  more  entangle- 
ments with  Byron  about  Allegra.  Shelley  wrote  to  Jane  Clairmont :  "  It 
is  of  vital  importance,  both  to  me  and  yourself,  to  Allegra  even,  that  I 
should  put  a  period  to  my  intimacy  with  Lord  Byron,  and  that  without 
eclat.  No  sentiments  of  honour  and  of  justice  restrain  him  (as  I 
strongly  suspect)  from  the  basest  suspicion,  and  the  only  mode  in  which 
I  could  effectually  silence  him  I  am  reluctant  (even  if  I  had  proof)  to 
employ  during  my  father's  life.  But  for  your  immediate  feelings,  I 
would  suddenly  and  irrevocably  leave  the  country  which  he  inhabits,  nor 
even  enter  it  but  as  an  enemy  to  determine  our  differences  without  words." 
(The  Nation,  XLVIII,  p.   116.) 

"  Works  of  Shelley,  VIII,  p.  258. 


102 

that  they  might  come  to  Italy.  The  subject  was  thus  revived 
and  a  formal  invitation  was  conveyed  in  a  letter  of  August  26, 
1821,  from  Shelley  to  Hunt.  It  proves  beyond  a  doubt  that 
Byron  was  the  chief  projector  of  the  journal: 

"  He  (Byron)  proposes  that  you  should  come  out  and  go  shares  with  him 
and  me,  in  a  periodical  work,  to  be  conducted  here ;  in  which  each  of  the 
contracting  parties  should  publish  all  their  original  compositions  and  share 
the  profits.  .  .  .  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  profits  of  any  scheme  in 
which  you  and  Lord  Byron  engage,  must,  from  various,  yet  co-operating 
reasons,  be  very  great.  As  for  myself,  I  am,  for  the  present,  only  a  sort 
of  link  between  you  and  him,  until  you  can  know  each  other  and  effectuate 
the  arrangement ;  since  (to  entrust  you  with  a  secret  which,  for  your  sake, 
I  withhold  from  Lord  Byron),  nothing  would  induce  me  to  share  in  the 
profits,  and  still  less,  in  the  borrowed  splendor  of  such  a  partnership. 
You  and  he,  in  different  manners,  would  be  equal,  and  would  bring,  in  a 
different  manner,  but  in  the  same  proportion,  equal  stocks  of  reputation 
and  success.  ...  I  did  not  ask  Lord  Byron  to  assist  me  in  sending  a 
remittance  for  your  journey;  because  there  are  men,  however  excellent, 
from  whom  we  would  never  receive  an  obligation,  in  the  worldly  sense 
of  the  word;  and  I  am  as  jealous  for  my  friend  as  for  myself.  .  .  .  He 
has  many  generous  and  exalted  qualities,  but  the  canker  of  aristocracy 
wants  to  be  cut  out."*^ 

Hunt's  answer  was  full  of  expectation  and  hope.  He  wrote 
that  "  Are  there  not  three  of  us  ?  .  .  .  We  will  divide  the 
world  between  us,  like  the  Triumvirate,  and  you  shall  be  the 
sleeping  partner,  if  you  will."^'^  To  Shelley's  reply  of  October 
6,  thanking  him  for  coming,  Hunt  answered :  "  You  say, 
Shelley,  you  thank  me  for  coming.  The  pleasure  of  being 
obliged  by  those  we  love  is  so  great  that  I  do  not  wonder  that 
you  continue  to  muster  up  some  obligation  to  me,  but  if  you 
are  obliged,  how  much  am  I  ?  "■*' 

From  the  beginning  of  the  enterprise  Thomas  Moore  and 
John  Murray  scented  trouble  and  made  more.  They  con- 
tinued their  intermeddling  after  The  Liberal  was  launched,  and 
doubtless  ministered  to  Byron's  vacillation.  Hunt  and  Murray 
had  disagreed  over  the  Story  of  Rimini*^  and  an  attack  on 
Southey  in  The  Examiner  of  May  11  and  18,  1817,  had  in- 

*^  Ibid.,  VIII,  p.  235,  August  26,  1821. 

*^  Correspondence,  I,  p.  172,  September  21,   1821. 

"Ibid.,  I,  p.  174,  November  16,  1821. 

*' Byron,  Letters  and  Journals,  IV,  p.  129,  June  4,  1817. 


103 

eluded  Murray  as  well.  Moreover,  Murray  saw  in  John  Hunt,** 
the  publisher  of  the  new  periodical,  a  dangerous  future  rival  in 
his  business  relations  with  Byron.  After  matters  became  un- 
pleasant in  Italy,  Murray  took  his  revenge  by  making  public 
Byron's  letters  containing  ill-natured  remarks  about  Hunt.^" 
The  relations  of  Moore  and  Hunt  had  been  very  friendly^^  but 
at  this  juncture  both  became  too  proud  of  having  a  "  noble 
lord  "  for  a  friend.^- 

Moore,  writing  to  Byron  in  the  latter  part  of  1821,  said: 
"  I  heard  some  time  ago  that  Leigh  Hunt  was  on  his  way  to 
Genoa  with  all  of  his  family ;  and  the  idea  seems  to  be,  that  you 
and  Shelley  and  he  are  to  conspire  together  in  The  Examiner. 
I  cannot  believe  this — and  deprecate  such  a  plan  with  all  my 
might.  Alone  you  may  do  anything,  but  partnerships  in  fame, 
like  those  in  trade,  make  the  strongest  party  answerable  for 
the  deficiencies  or  delinquencies  of  the  rest,  and  I  tremble  even 
for  you  with  such  a  bankrupt  company.  .  .  .  They  are  both 
clever  fellows,  and  Shelley  I  look  upon  as  a  man  of  real 
genius ;  but,  I  must  say  again,  you  could  not  give  your  enemies 
(the  .  .  .  s  'et  hoc  genus  omne')  a  greater  triumph  than  by 
joining  such  an  unequal  and  unholy  alliance,"^^  an  astounding 
statement  from  a  man  of  pronounced  liberal  views.  Byron's 
answer  of  January  24  was  indefinite  and  perhaps  inten- 
tionally misleading :  "  Be  assured  that  there  is  no  such  coalition 
as  you  apprehend."^*     February  19,  Moore  advised  Byron  not 

"Ibid.,  VI,  pp.  117,  122,  127,  129,  134,  138,  158. 

"^Ibid.,  VI,  p.  156, 

"  In  1814  Moore  showed  considerable  pride  in  being  included  as  one  of 
the  four  poets  to  sup  with  Apollo  in  the  Feast  of  the  Poets  and  said  that 
he  was  "  particularly  flattered  by  praise  from  Hunt,  because  he  is  one 
of  the  most  honest  and  candid  men  "  that  he  knew.  (Memoirs,  Journal 
and  Correspondence,  II,  p.  159.)  In  1819  Hunt  had  urged  upon  Perry, 
the  editor  of  the  Morning  Chronicle,  the  necessity  of  a  public  subscription 
for  Moore.  (Ibid.,  II,  p.  340).  An  unfavorable  review  of  Moore's  political 
principles  in  The  Examiner  during  the  same  year  may  have  done  something 
to  bring  about  the  change  in  Moore's  feelings,  though  he  was  eulogized 
in  a  later  issue  of  January  21,  1821. 

^  B.  W.  Procter,  An  Autobiographical  Fragment,  p.  153. 

"  Letters  and  Journals  of  Lord  Byron,  II,  p.  583. 

'^Ibid.,  II,  p.  582. 


104 

to  discuss  religious  matters  in  the  new  work,  but  to  confine 
himself  to  political  theories ;  "  if  you  have  any  political  cata- 
marans to  explode  this  (London)  is  your  place."^^  After  The 
Liberal  was  begun,  Moore  wrote :  "  It  grieves  me  to  urge  any- 
thing so  much  against  Hunt's  interest,  but  I  should  not  hesi- 
tate to  use  the  same  language  to  himself  were  I  near  him.  I 
would,  if  I  were  you,  serve  him  in  every  possible  way  but  this — 
I  would  give  him  (if  he  would  accept  of  it)  the  profits  of  the 
same  works,  published  separately — but  I  would  not  mix  myself 
up  in  this  way  with  others.  I  would  not  become  a  partner  in 
this  sort  of  miscellaneous  '  pot  au  feu '  where  the  bad  flavour 
of  one  ingredient  is  sure  to  taint  all  the  rest.  I  would  be,  if 
I  were  you,  alone,  single-handed  and  as  such,  invincible. "^^ 
The  Hunts  started  for  Italy  November  15,  1821,  but  on  ac- 
>^  count  of  various  setbacks  and  delays  did  not  really  leave  the 
coast  of  England  until  May  13,  1822.  In  the  ten  months 
which  elapsed  between  the  invitation  to  Hunt  and  his  arrival, 
*•  it  is  not  surprising  that  Byron's  enthusiasm  had  cooled.  He 
would  have  withdrawn  if  he  could  have  done  so,  although 
Byron,  Trelawny  says,  was  at  first  more  eager  than  Shelley 
for  Hunt's  arrival.^'^  As  has  already  been  stated  above,  affairs 
between  Byron  and  Shelley  had  been  very  strained  in  January. 
In  the  letter  of  March  2,  already  referred  to,  Shelley  informed 
Hunt  that  matters  had  improved  between  Byron  and  himself 
and  that  Byron  expressed  the  "greatest  eagerness  to  proceed 
with  the  journal,  he  dilates  with  impatience  on  the  delay,  and 
he  disregards  the  opinion  of  those  who  have  advised  him 
against  it." 

Shelley  thought  that  their  strained  relations  would  in  no 
way  interfere  with  Hunt's  prospects,  and,  with  what  looks 
a  little  like  double-dealing,  that  it  would  be  possible  for  him 
to  preserve  what  influence  he  had  over  the  "  Proteus  "  until 
Hunt  arrived :  "  It  will  be  no  very  difficult  task  to  execute  that 
you  have  assigned  me — to  keep  him  in  heart  with  the  project 

=■=  Ibid.,  II,  p.  584. 

^^Jeaffreson,  The  Real  Lord  Byron,  II,  p.  i88. 

^''Recollections  of  the  Last  Days  of  Shelley  and  Byron,  p.  iii. 


105 

until  your  arrival. "^^  April  lo,  Shelley  wrote  again  to  Hunt 
of  Byron's  eagerness  for  his  arrival :  "  he  urges  me  to  press 
you  to  depart."  But  a  reference  to  the  state  of  affairs  in  the 
two  households  in  Italy  carries  a  foreboding  note :  "  Lord 
Byron  has  made  me  bitterly  feel  the  inferiority  which  the 
world  has  presumed  to  place  between  us,  and  which  subsists 
nowhere  in  reality  but  in  our  own  talents,  which  are  not  our 
own  but  Nature's — or  in  our  rank,  which  is  not  our  own  but 
Fortune's."  With  his  usual  humility,  Shelley  closes  the  letter 
with  an  apology  for  carrying  his  jealousy  of  Byron  into  Hunt's 
relations  with  him,  and  says :  "  You  in  the  superiority  of  a 
wise  and  tranquil  nature  have  well  corrected  and  justly  re- 
proved me  .  .  .  you  will  find  much  in  me  to  correct  and  re- 
prove."^^  During  the  summer  Shelley  continued  to  shrink 
more  than  ever  from  Byron;  June  i8  he  declared  to  Hunt  that 
he  would  not  be  the  link  between  them  for  Byron  is  the 
"  nucleus  of  all  that  is  hateful."  His  one  dread  was  that  he 
might  injure  Hunt's  prospects.*'^  Between  April  and  July 
Byron's  enthusiasm  had  again  cooled.  Trelawny  relates  that 
Shelley  when  he  went  to  Leghorn  to  meet  Hunt,  was  greatly 
depressed  by  Lord  Byron's  "  shuffling  and  equivocating,"  and, 
"  but  for  imperilling  Hunt's  prospects,"  that  Shelley  would 
have  abruptly  terminated  their  intercourse.^^  On  July  4 
Shelley  wrote  to  Mary  from  Pisa  that  "  things  are  in  the 
worst  possible  situation  with  respect  to  poor  Hunt.  .  .  .  Lord 
Byron  must  of  course  furnish  the  requisite  funds  at  present, 
as  I  cannot,  but  he  seems  inclined  to  depart  without  the  neces- 
sary explanations  and  arrangements  due  to  such  a  situation  as 
Hunt's.  These,  in  spite  of  delicacy,  I  must  procure."*'^  This 
dual  attitude  of  Shelley  has  been  variously  viewed.  Professor 
Dowden  thinks  it  a  "  triumph  of  diplomacy,"*'^  while  Jeaffreson 
deems  it  a  conspiracy  of  Hunt  and  Shelley  against  the  innocent 
and  unsuspecting  Byron. 

°^  Nicoll,  Literary  Anecdotes  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  p.  353,  March, 
1822. 
^^bid.,  p.  356.  '"Fortnightly,  XXIX,  p.  850. 

"^Recollections  of  the  Last  Days  of  Shelley  and  Byron,  p.   112. 
«=  Works  of  Shelley,  VIII,  p.  288-289. 
®  Life  of  Shelley,  II,  p.  459. 


106 

Hunt  gave  the  following  ominous  description  of  his  first  call 
upon  Lord  Byron :  "  The  day  was  very  hot ;  the  road  to  Mount 
Nero  was  very  hot,  through  dusty  suburbs;  and  when  I  got 
there  I  found  the  hottest  looking  house  I  ever  saw.  It  was 
salmon  colour.  Think  of  this,  flaring  over  the  country  in  a 
hot  Italian  sun !  But  the  greatest  of  all  the  heats  was  within. 
Upon  seeing  Lord  Byron,  I  hardly  knew  him,  he  was  grown  so 
fat;  and  he  was  longer  in  recognizing  me,  I  had  grown  so 
thin."^*  Hunt  wrote  to  England  that  Byron  received  him  with 
marked  cordiality^^  but  Shelley's  friend  Williams,  in  his  last 
letter  to  his  wife,  stated  that  Byron  treated  Hunt  vilely  and 
"  actually  said  as  much  that  he  did  not  wish  his  name  to  be 
attached  to  the  work,  and  of  course  to  theirs  " ;  that  his  treat- 
ment of  Mrs.  Hunt  w^as  "most  shameful";  and  that  his  "con- 
duct cut  H.  to  the  soul."^"  The  Hunt  family  was  quickly 
quartered  on  the  ground  floor  of  Byron's  palace,  which  Byron 
had  furnished  at  a  cost  of  i6o.^^  Shelley's  sensible  sugges- 
tions to  Hunt  about  his  furniture,"^  about  the  income  from  The 
Examiner,  and  worse  still,  his  delicately  given  advice  that  it 
was  not  possible  for  him  to  bring  all  of  his  family,  had  been 
ignored.^** 

With  Shelley's  tragic  death  a  few  days  after  their  arrival, 
the  only  "  link  of  the  two  thunderbolts,"^''  as  he  had  called 
himself,  was  broken.  Hunt  was  left  in  an  awkward  position 
which  no  one  could  have  foreseen.  A  few  days  later  he  wrote 
to  friends  at  home  of  Byron's  kindness. '^^  In  1828  he  gave  a 
different  version : 

"  Lord  Byron  requested  me  to  look  upon  him  as  standing  in  Mr.  S.'s  place. 
My  heart  died  within  me  to  hear  him ;  I  made  the  proper  acknowledgment, 
but  I  knew  what  he  meant,  and  I  more  than  doubted  whether  even  in  that, 
the  most  trivial  part  of  the  friendship,  he  could  resemble  Mr.  Shelley,  if 

^Autobiography,  II,  p.  94.  ^'  Correspotidence,  I,  p.  86. 

**  Monkhouse,  Life  of  Leigh  Hunt,  p.  156. 

^  Hunt  refuted  the  statement  that  Byron  had  walled  off  part  of  his  dwel- 
ling and  furnished  it  handsomely.  {Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Con- 
temporaries, p.  14  ff.) 

**  Works  of  Shelley,  VIII,  pp.  242,  253. 

®'  NicoU  and  Wise,  Literary  Anecdotes  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  p. 
342,  December  22,  1818. 

'"^  Works  of  Shelley,  VIII,  p.  286.       '''^Correspondence,  I,  p.  190. 


107 

he  would.  Circumstances  unfortunately  rendered  the  matter  of  too  much 
importance  to  me  at  the  moment.  I  had  reason  to  fear: — I  was  com- 
pelled to  try: — and  things  turned  out  as  I  had  dreaded.  The  public  have 
been  given  to  understand  that  Lord  Byron's  purse  was  at  my  command, 
and  that  I  used  it  according  to  the  spirit  with  which  it  was  offered.  /  did 
so.     Stern  necessity  and  a  family  compelled  me."" 

With  the  magazine  scarcely  Hkely  to  yield  an  income  for 
some  time,  it  was  absolutely  necessary  for  Hunt  to  get  money 
from  somewhere  for  living  expenses  and,  Shelley  gone,  there 
was  no  one  left  to  tide  over  the  interval  but  Byron.  The  latter 
did  not  relish  the  position  of  sole  banker  to  a  family  of  nine 
and  doled  out  £70  in  small  doses  through  his  steward,  Hunt 
says,  just  as  if  his  "  disgraces  were  being  counted.""  He  was 
embittered  by  his  position  as  suppliant  and  dependent,  though 
there  is  nothing  to  show  that  he  was  ever  refused  what  he 
asked  for  or  requested  to  pay  back  what  he  owed.^* 

Hunt's  entire  money  obligation  to  Byron  has  been  compre- 
hensively calculated  by  Gait  at  £500:  £200  for  the  journey  from 
England,  £70  at  Pisa  for  living  expenses,  the  cost  of  the  jour- 
ney from  Pisa  to  Genoa,  and  £30  from  Genoa  to  Florence. 
Gait  thought  the  use  of  the  ground  floor  a  small  favor  since 
Byron  could  use  only  one  floor  for  himself.  Such  practices 
were  very  common,  Italian  palaces  often  being  built  for  that 
purpose. ■^^  It  is  likely  that  until  the  step  was  irrevocable 
Byron  did  not  correctly  gauge  Hunt's  resources  and  the  re- 
sponsibility which  he  was  assuming  in  transporting  a  large 
family  to  a  foreign  country.  If  he  did,  he  expected  to  share 
the  burden  with  Shelley.  Had  Hunt  been  financially  inde- 
pendent, it  is  probable  that  he  and  Byron  would  have  remained 
on  amicable  enough  terms,  for  the  former  asserts  that  the  first 
time  he  was  treated  with  disrespect  was  when  Byron  knew  he 
was  in  want."''  Yet  that  neither  Shelley  nor  Byron  were  wholly 
ignorant  of  what  to  expect  before  Hunt's  arrival  in  Italy  is 
apparent  from  Shelley's  letter  to  Byron,  February  15,  1822: 

''^  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries,  p.  i8. 
"Ibid.,  p.  18. 

^' "  I  could  always  procure  what  I  wanted  from  Lord  Byron,  and  living 
here  is  divinely  cheap."     (Correspondence,  I,  p.  198,  November  7,  1822,) 
'^  Life  of  Byron,  p.  242. 
^^  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries,  p.  6. 


108 

"  Hunt  had  urged  me  more  than  once  to  ask  you  to  lend  him  this  money. 
My  answer  consisted  in  sending  him  all  I  could  spare,  which  I  have  now 
literally  done.  Your  kindness  in  fitting  up  a  part  of  your  own  home  for 
his  accommodation  I  sensibly  felt,  and  willingly  accept  from  you  on  his 
part,  but,  believe  me,  without  the  slightest  intention  of  imposing,  or,  if  1 
could  help  it,  of  allowing  to  be  imposed,  any  heavier  task  on  your  purse. 
As  it  has  come  to  this  in  spite  of  my  exertions,  I  will  not  conceal  from 
you  the  low  ebb  of  my  own  money  affairs  in  the  present  moment, — that  is, 
my  absolute  incapacity  of  assisting  Hunt  further.  I  do  not  think  poor 
Hunt's  promise  to  pay  in  a  given  time  is  worth  very  much,  but  mine  is 
less  subject  to  uncertainty,  and  I  should  be  happy  to  be  responsible  for 
any  engagement  he  may  have  proposed  to  you."  '^ 

Mrs.  Hunt  seems  to  have  widened  further  the  breach  be- 
tween the  two  men.'^^  She  did  not  speak  Itahan  and  the 
Countess  GuiccioH,  the  head  of  Byron's  estabhshment,  did  not 
speak  EngHsh.  Neither  made  any  Hnguistic  efforts  and  conse- 
quently there  was  no  intercourse  between  the  famihes  of  the 
two  households.  This,  Hunt  later  says,  was  the  first  cause  of 
diminished  cordiality  between  Byron  and  himself.  The  Hunt 
children  were  a  further  cause  of  trouble.  Byron  wrote  of 
them  to  Mrs.  Shelley :  "  They  were  dirtier  and  more  mis- 
chievous than  Yahoos.  What  they  can't  destroy  with  their 
feet  they  will  with  their  fingers. "^^  Again  he  described  them 
as  "  six  little  blackguards  .  .  .  kraal  out  of  the  Hottentot 
country."^" 

The  question  of  rank  was  a  thorn  in  the  flesh,  particularly 
to  Hunt.      While  in  open  theory  he  had  no  respect  for  titles, 

"  Works  of  Shelley,  VHI,  p.  257. 

"  She  used  no  tact  in  her  dealings  with  Lord  Byron.  She  let  him  see 
that  she  had  no  respect  for  rank  or  titles.  She  even  went  beyond  the 
limits  of  courtesy  in  her  remarks  to  him.  On  Byron's  saying,  "  What  do 
you  think,  Mrs.  Hunt  ?  Trelawny  had  been  speaking  of  my  morals !  What 
do  you  think  of  that?"  "It  is  the  first  time,"  said  Mrs.  Hunt,  "I  ever 
heard  of  them,"  (Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries,  p,  27). 
Of  his  portrait  by  Harlowe  she  said  "  that  it  resembled  a  great  schoolboy, 
who  had  had  a  plain  bun  given  him,  instead  of  a  plum  one,"  a  facetious 
speech  indiscreetly  repeated  by  Hunt  to  Byron. 

''^Letters  and  Journals,  VI,  p.  124. 

^'' Ibid.,  VI,  pp.  1 19-120.  Hunt's  view  was  quite  different.  Byron  was, 
he  thought,  intimidated  "  out  of  his  reasoning  "  by  his  children  and  their 
principles.     {Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries,  p.  28.) 


109 

in  actual  practice  he  groveled  before  them.  Pride,  as  he 
thought,  had  made  him  dechne  all  advances  from  men  of  rank, 
but  it  was  more  with  the  air  of  being  afraid  to  trust  himself 
than  with  real  indifference.  His  exception,  made  in  the  case 
of  Lord  Byron,  is  thus  explained :  "  But  talents,  poetry,  sim- 
ilarity of  political  opinion,  flattery  of  early  sympathy  with  my 
boyish  writings,  more  flattering  offers  Of  friendship  and  the 
last  climax  of  flattery,  an  earnest  waiving  of  his  rank,  were 
too  much  for  me  in  the  person  of  Lord  Byron."*^  On  the 
renewal  of  the  acquaintance  in  Italy,  the  very  familiar  attitude 
seen  in  the  dedication  of  the  Story  of  Rimini,  which  Hunt 
himself  had  decided  was  "  foolish,"  was  changed  at  the  advice 
of  Shelley  to  an  extremely  formal  manner  of  address.  Hunt 
says  that  Byron  did  not  like  the  change.^^  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
six  years  of  separation  had  brought  about  other  more  impor- 
tant changes :  Byron  had  grown  more  selfish  and  avaricious. 
Hunt  more  helpless  and  vain. 

Three  months  were  spent  in  Pisa  after  Shelley's  death.  In 
September  the  two  families  left  for  Genoa,  travelling  in  sepa-  ' 
rate  parties  and,  on  their  arrival,  settling  in  separate  homes, 
the  Hunts  with  Mrs.  Shelley.  From  this  time  on  there  was 
little  intercourse  between  Byron  and  Hunt.  October  9,  1822, 
Byron  wrote  to  England  and  denied  that  all  three  families  were 
living  under  one  roof.  He  said  that  he  rarely  saw  Hunt,  not 
more  than  once  a  month.^^  Hunt  to  the  contrary  said  that 
they  saw  less  of  each  other  than  in  Genoa  yet  "  considerable."** 
Although  at  no  time  was  there  an  open  breach,  yet  cordiality 
and  sympathy  were  wholly  lost  on  both  sides  in  the  strain  of 
the  financial  situation.  They  failed  of  agreement  even  on  im- 
personal matters.  Byron  had  looked  forward  with  great 
pleasure  to  Hunt's  companionship.  Before  they  met  he  had 
written :  "  When  Leigh  Hunt  comes  we  shall  have  banter 
enough  about  those  old  ruffiani,  the  old  dramatists,  with  their 
tiresome  conceits,  their  jingling  rhymes,  and  endless  play  upon 

"  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries,  p.  32. 

^'^  Ibid.,  p.    30. 

'^^  Letters  and  Journals,  VI,  pp.  157,  167. 

**  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries,  p.  64. 


110 

words. "^^  This  pleasant  anticipation  was  not  realized,  for 
Hunt's  sensitiveness  in  petty  matters  and  Byron's  scorn  of 
Hunt's  affectation  and  of  his  ill-bred  personal  applications,^®  or 
so  the  hearer  interpreted  them,  reduced  safe  topics  to  Boswell's 
Life  of  Johnson.  Even  a  mutual  admiration  of  Pope  and 
Dryden  was  forgotten.  Literary  jealousy  and  vanity  fed  the 
y  flames.  Hunt  was  unable  to  appreciate  manhood  of  Byron's 
virile  type,  and  he  did  not  try  to  conceal  the  fact  from  one 
who  was  hungry  for  praise.  On  the  other  hand,  Byron  did 
not  render  to  Hunt  the  homage  he  was  accustomed  to  receive 
from  the  Cockney  circle  and  had  nothing  but  contempt  for  all 
his  works  except  the  Story  of  Rimini.  A  statement  in  the 
anonymous  Life  of  Lord  Byron,  published  by  Iley,  that  the 
misunderstanding  was  the  result  of  a  criticism  by  Hunt  of 
Parisina  in  the  Leghorn  and  Lucca  newspapers  and  that  Byron 
never  spoke  to  him  after  the  discovery^"  is  a  fabrication  as 
unsubstantial  as  the  greater  part  of  the  other  statements  in  the 
same  book.  Hunt  denied  the  charge.  His  sole  connection 
with  Parisina  was  that  he  supplied  the  incident  of  the  heroine 
talking  in  her  sleep,^^  a  device  that  he  had  already  made  use  of 
in  Rimini. 

On  his  arrival  in  Italy  Hunt  wrote  back  to  England  that 
Byron  entered  into  The  Liberal  with  great  ardor,  and  that  he 
had  presented  the  Vision  of  Judgment  to  his  brother  and  him- 
self for  their  mutual  benefit.^^  Yet  four  days  later  in  a  letter 
to  Moore  Byron  wrote :  "  Hunt  seems  sanguine  about  the 
matter  but  (entre  nous)  I  am  not.  I  do  not,  however,  like  to 
put  him  out  of  spirits  by  saying  so,  for  he  is  bilious  and  unwell. 
Do,  pray,  answer  this  letter  immediately.  Do  send  Hunt  any- 
thing in  prose  or  verse  of  yours,  to  start  him  handsomely — 
and  lyrical,  ?ncal,  or  what  you  please. "''°  At  the  time  of 
Trelawny's  first  visit  after  the  work  had  begun,  Byron  said 
impatiently :  "  It  will  be  an  abortion,"  and  again  in  Trelawny's 
presence  he  called  to  his  bull-dog  on  the  stairway,  "  Don't 

'°  Medwin,  Conversations  of  Lord  Byron,  p.  58. 

^  Monkhouse,  Life  of  Leigh  Hunt,  pp.  64-65. 

"II,  pp.   145-146.  ^^Autobiography,  II,  p.  24. 

^^Correspondence,  I,  p.  188,  July  8,  1822.     Letter  to  his  sister-in-law. 

^Letters  and  Journals,  VI,  p.  97,  July  12,  1822. 


Ill 

let  any  Cockneys  pass  this  way."^^  Sometime  previous  to 
October  his  endurance  must  have  given  way  completely,  for 
in  that  month  Hunt  wrote  that  Byron  was  again  for  the 
plan.®^  In  January  Byron  urged  John  Hunt  to  employ  good 
writers  for  The  Liberal  that  it  might  succeed.**^  Alarch  17, 
1823,  Byron,  in  a  letter  to  John  Hunt,  said  that  he  attributed 
the  failure  of  The  Liberal  to  his  own  contributions  and  that 
the  magazine  would  stand  a  better  chance  without  him.  He 
desired  to  sever  the  partnership  if  the  magazine  was  to  be 
continued.^^  His  constant  vacillation  in  part  supports  the 
charge  made  by  Hunt  that  Byron  under  protest  contributed 
his  worse  productions  in  order  to  make  a  show  of  coopera- 
tion.''^ Insinuations  from  Moore  and  Murray  had  fallen  on 
fertile  ground  and  had  persuaded  Byron  that  the  association 
jeopardized  his  reputation.  Hobhouse,  Byron's  friend,  joined 
his  dissenting  voice  to  theirs,  and  "  rushed  over  the  Alps " 
to  add  to  his  disapproval."^  Hazlitt's  account  of  the  conspiracy 
of  Byron's  friends  against  The  Liberal  is  very  fiery."^ 

"^Recollections  of  the  Last  Days  of  Shelley  and  Byron,  I,  p.  174. 

^Correspondence,  I,  p.   192.     October   (?),   1822. 

"^Letters  and  Journals,  VI,  p.  160.     January  8,  1823. 

"^  Ibid.,  VI,  pp.  171-173. 

"'  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries,  pp.  50,  63. 

^Ibid.,  p.  48. 

" "  Blackwood's  Magazine  overflowed,  as  might  be  expected,  with  ten- 
fold gall  and  bitterness ;  the  John  Bull  was  outrageous ;  and  Mr.  Jerdan 
black  in  the  face  at  this  unheard-of  and  disgraceful  union.  But  who  would 
have  supposed  that  Mr.  Thomas  Moore  and  Mr.  Hobhouse,  those  staunch 
friends  and  partisans  of  the  people,  should  also  be  thrown  into  almost 
hysterical  agonies  of  well-bred  horror  at  the  coalition  between  their  noble 
and  ignoble  acquaintance,  between  the  Patrician  and  the  '  Newspaper- 
Man  '  ?  Mr.  Moore  darted  backwards  and  forwards  from  Cold-Bath-Fields' 
Prison  to  the  Examiner-Office,  from  Mr.  Longman's  to  Mr.  Murray's  shop, 
in  a  state  of  ridiculous  trepidation,  to  see  what  was  to  be  done  to  pre- 
vent this  degradation  of  the  aristocracy  of  letters,  this  indecent  encroach- 
ment of  plebeian  pretensions,  this  undue  extension  of  patronage  and  com- 
promise of  privilege.  The  Tories  were  shocked  that  Lord  Byron  should 
grace  the  popular  side  by  his  direct  countenance  and  assistance — the 
Whigs  were  shocked  that  he  should  share  his  confidence  and  councils  with 
any  one  who  did  not  unite  the  double  recommendations  of  birth  and 
genius — but  themselves !"     (Hazlitt,  The  Plain  Speaker,  II,  p.  437  ff.) 


112 

The  first  number  of  The  Liberal  appeared  October  15, 
1822.  There  were  three  subsequent  numbers.  Byron's  con- 
tributions were  his  brilHant  and  masterly  satire,  the  Vision  of 
Judgment,  Heaven  and  Earth,  A  Letter  to  the  Editor  of  my 
Grandmother's  Review,  The  Blues,  and  his  translation  of  the 
first  canto  of  Pulci's  Morgante  Maggiore.  Murray  had  with- 
held the  preface  to  the  Vision  of  Judgment  and  this  omission, 
combined  with  an  unwise  announcement  in  The  Examiner  of 
September  29,  1822,  by  John  Hunt,  made  the  reception  even 
worse  than  it  might  otherwise  have  been.  Hunt  said  the 
Vision  of  Judgment  "played  the  devil  with  all  of  us."''^  Shel- 
ley had  made  ready  for  the  forthcoming  magazine  his  ex- 
quisite translation  of  Goethe's  May  Day  Night  and  a  prose 
narrative,  A  German  Apologue.  These  appeared  in  the  first 
number.  Hunt's  best  contributions  were  two  poems.  Lines 
to  a  Spider  and  Mahmoud.  Letters  from  Abroad  are  good  in 
spots  only.  His  two  satires.  The  Dogs  and  The  Book  of 
Beginners,  are  pale  reflections  in  meter  and  tone  of  Don  Juan 
and  Beppo  combined.  The  Florentine  Lovers  is  a  good  story 
spoiled.  Rhyme  and  Reason,  The  Guili  Tre,  and  the  rest  are 
purely  hack  work,  with  the  possible  exceptions  of  the  transla- 
tion from  Ariosto  and  the  modernization  of  the  Squire's  Tale. 
Hazlitt  contributed  Pulpit  Oratory,  On  the  Spirit  of  Mon- 
archy, a  pithy  dissertation  On  the  Scotch  Character,  and  a 
delightful  reminiscence  of  Coleridge  in  My  First  Acquaint- 
ance zvith  Poets.  Mrs.  Shelley  wrote  A  Tale  of  the  Passions, 
Mme.  D'Houdetot,  and  Giovanni  Villani,  all  rather  stilted  and 
heavy.  Charles  Browne  contributed  Shakespear's  Fools.  A 
number  of  unidentified  prose  articles  and  poems,  many  of  the 
latter  translations  from  Alfieri,  completed  the  list. 

The  causes  of  the  failure  of  The  Liberal  were  very  com- 
plex, but  quite  obvious.  There  was  no  definite  political  cam- 
paign mapped  out,  no  proportion  outlined  for  the  various  de- 
partments, no  assignments  of  individual  responsibility,  no 
attempt  to  cater  to  the  public  appetite  or  to  mollify  the  public 
prejudices  for  expediency's  sake,  and  an  utter  want  of  har- 
mony among  its  supporters.     Each  contributor  rode  his  own 

^  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries,  p.  52. 


113 

hobby.  Each  vented  his  private  spleen  without  regard  to  the 
common  good.  It  was  a  vague,  up-in-the-air  scheme,  wholly- 
lacking  in  coordination  and  common  sense.  Byron's  fickleness 
and  want  of  genuine  interest  in  a  small  affair  among  many 
other  greater  ones;  the  disappointment  of  both  Byron^''  and 
Hunt  in  not  realizing  the  enormous  profits  that  they  had  looked 
forward  to — although  Hunt  wrote  later  that  the  "moderate 
profits  "  were  quite  enough  to  have  encouraged  perseverance 
on  the  part  of  Byron ;  Hunt's  ill-health  and  unhappy  situation 
which  rendered  it  difficult  for  him  to  write ;  John  Hunt's  inex- 
perience as  a  bookseller;  the  general  unpopularity  of  the  edi- 
tor, the  publisher,  and  the  contributors ;  and  last,  the  pent-up 
storm  of  rage  from  the  press  which  greeted  the  first  number 
of  The  Liberal/^'^  were  other  reasons  that  contributed  to  its 
ultimate  downfall.  In  seeking  Hunt  for  the  editor  of  such  a 
venture,  as  Gait  had  pointed  out,^^^  Byron  had  mistaken  his 
political  notoriety  for  solid  literary  reputation. 

Hunt,  notwithstanding  his  confession^''-  of  an  inability  to 
write  at  his  best  and  of  his  brother's  inexperience,  throws  the 
burden  of  failure  solely  on  Byron.  He  asserts  that  The  Liberal 
had  no  enemies  and,  worst  of  all,  that  Byron  when  he  foresaw 
hostility  and  failure,  gave  him  and  his  brother  the  profits  that 
they  might  carry  the  responsibility  of  an  "ominous  partner- 
ship "^"^ — a  statement  ungenerously  distorted  by  bitter  memo- 
ries, for  when  John  Hunt  was  prosecuted  for  the  publication 
of  the  Vision  of  Judgment,  Byron  offered  to  stand  trial  in  his 
stead.  Neither  does  Hunt  state  that  Byron's  contributions 
were  gratis  and  that  the  "  moderate  profits  "  enabled  him  and 
his  brother  to  pay  off  some  of  their  old   debts.^*'*     Byron, 

**  Gait  in  his  Life  of  Byron  says :  "  Whether  Mr.  Hunt  was  or  was  not 
a  fit  co-partner  for  one  of  his  Lordship's  rank  and  celebrity,  I  do  not  under- 
take to  judge ;  but  every  individual  was  good  enough  for  that  vile  prostitu- 
tion of  his  genius,  to  which  in  an  unguarded  hour,  he  submitted  for  money." 

CP.  244-) 

*'^The  Literary  Gazette  of  October  19,  1822,  was  one  of  the  notable 
opponents. 

""  Life  of  Byron,  p.  239. 

^"'^  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries,  p.  52. 

'"Ubid.,  p.  S3- 

^•^  Byron,  Letters  and  Journals,  VI,  p.  183. 


114 

strong  with  the  prescience  of  failure,  hkewise  shifted  the  blame 
to  other  shoulders  and  with  the  aid  of  a  strong  imagination 
tried  to  persuade  himself  and  his  friends  that  the  Hunts  had 
projected  the  affair  and  that  he  had  consented  in  an  evil  hour 
to  engage  in  it  ;^°^  that  they  were  the  cause  of  the  failure ; 
that  his  motives  throughout  had  been  philanthropic  only  in 
nature  ;^°''  and  that  he  was  sacrificing  himself  for  others. 
Such  statements  are  inventions  born  of  self-accusation  and  of 
self-defense.  The  worst  that  can  be  said  of  Byron  from  begin- 
ning to  end  of  the  affair  is  that  he  was  not  conscientious  in 
his  endeavors  to  make  the  journal  a  success;  that,  after  it 
failed,  he  evaded  financial  responsibility  by  placing  barriers 
of  coldness  and  ungraciousness  between  Hunt  and  himself. 
On  October  9,  1822,  he  wrote  to  Moore  that  he  had  done  all 
he  could  for  Hunt  "  but  in  the  affairs  of  this  world  he  him- 
self is  a  child  ";"'^  "As  it  is,  I  will  not  quit  them  (the  Hunts) 
in  their  adversity,  though  it  should  cost  me  my  character, 
fame,  money,  and  the  usual  et  cetera.  .  .  .  Had  their  journal 
gone  on  well,  and  I  could  have  aided  to  make  it  better  for 
them,  I  should  then  have  left  them ;  after  my  safe  pilotage  off 
a  lee  shore,  to  make  a  prosperous  voyage  by  themselves.  As 
it  is,  I  can't,  or  would  not,  if  I  could,  leave  them  amidst  the 
breakers.  As  to  any  community  of  feeling,  thought,  or  opin- 
ions between  L.  H.  and  me,  there  is  little  or  none;  we  meet 
rarely,  hardly  ever;  but  I  think  him  a  good-principled  and 
able  man."^  .  .  .  You  would  not  have  had  me  leave  him  in  the 
street  with  his  family,  would  you?  And  as  to  the  other  plan 
you  mention,  you  forget  how  it  would  humiliate  him — that 
his  writings  should  be  supposed  to  be  dead  weight !  Think  a 
moment — he  is  perhaps  the  vainest  man  on  earth,  at  least  his 
own  friends  say  so  pretty  loudly ;  and  if  he  were  in  other  cir- 
cumstances I  might  be  tempted  to  take  him  down  a  peg;  but 
not  now — it  would  be  cruel. ^"^  ...  A  more  amiable  man  in 

^"'Ibid.,  VI,  p.  124. 

^"^  Ibid.,  VI,  p.  174,  p.  182.     (Letters  to  Mrs.  Shelley.) 

^"^  Ibid.,  VI,  p.  124. 

^"^  Ibid.,  v.,  p.  157,  December  25,  1822 

^"^bid.,  VI,  pp.  167^168. 


115 

society  I  know  not,  nor  (when  he  will  allow  his  sense  to  pre- 
vail over  his  sectarian  principles)  a  better  writer.  When  he 
was  writing  his  Rimini  I  was  not  the  last  to  discover  its  beau- 
ties, long  before  it  was  published.  Even  then  I  remonstrated 
against  its  vulgarisms ;  which  are  the  more  extraordinary, 
because  the  author  is  anything  but  a  vulgar  man.'"""  During 
April,  1823,  the  Countess  of  Blessington  had  a  conversation 
with  Byron  in  which  he  said  that  while  he  regretted  having 
embarked  in  The  Liberal,  yet  he  had  a  good  opinion  of  the 
talents  and  principles  of  Hunt,  despite  their  diametrically  op- 
posed tastes."^  On  April  2,  1823,  he  wrote  that  Hunt  was 
incapable  or  unwilling  to  help  himself;  that  he  could  not  keep 
up  this  *'  genuine  philanthropy "  permanently ;  and  that  he 
would  furnish  Hunt  with  the  means  to  return  to  England  in 
comfort."^^^  There  is  no  proof  that  Byron  ever  made  such 
an  ofifer  to  Hunt.  The  purchase  money  of  Hunt's  journey 
home  was  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries.  On 
July  23,  1823,  Byron  went  to  Greece.  The  Hunts,  provided 
by  him  with  £30  for  the  trip,  left  Genoa  about  the  same  time 
for  Florence,  where  they  were  literally  stranded,  in  ill-health 
and  without  sufficient  means  for  support,^^^  until  their  depar- 
ture for  England  in  September,  1825.  The  suffering  there  and 
the  foul  calumny  at  home  magnified  in  Hunt's  mind"*  the 
indignity  and  injustice  that  had  been  put  upon  him  and  warped 
his  sense  of  gratitude  and  honor  in  the  whole  affair.  He 
wrote  from  Florence :  "  The  stiffness  of  age  has  come  into 
my  joints;  my  legs  are  sore  and  fevered;  and  I  sometimes  feel 
as  if  I  were  a  ship  rotting  in  a  stagnant  harbour."^^^  Mrs. 
Shelley  protested  to  Byron  concerning  his  treatment  of  Hunt"® 

^^Ubid.,  V,  p.  588. 

"^  Lady  Blessington,  Conversations  of  Lord  Byron,  p.  77. 

"-Letters  and  Journals,  VI,  pp.  182-183,  April  2,  1823. 

^'  Hunt's  only  means  of  support  were  the  income  from  his  contributions 
to  Colburn's  New  Monthly  Magazine,  from  the  Wishing  Cap  Papers  in  The 
Examiner,  and  an  annuity  of  £100.     {Correspondence,  I,  p.  22yJ) 

"*  Correspondence,  I,  p.  233-234. 

"^Correspondence,  I,  p.  228.  See  Hazlitt's  account  of  Hunt  in  Italy 
given  in  a  letter  from  Haydon  to  Miss  Mitford.  (Haydon,  Life,  Letters 
and  Table  Talk,  pp.  223-225.) 

^^'' Moore,  Memoirs,  IV,  p.  220;  V.  p.  182. 


v/ 


116 

but  she  received  no  further  satisfaction  than  the  statement 
that  he  had  engaged  in  the  journal  for  good-will  and  respect 
for  Hunt  solely.^^^ 
y  The  publisher  Colburn  in  1825  made  Hunt  an  advance  of 
money  for  the  return  journey,  to  be  repaid  by  a  volume  of 
selections  from  h'ls  ozvii  writings  preceded  by  a  biographical 
sketch. '^^^  An  irresistible  longing  for  England  and  a  crisis 
in  the  disagreement  with  John  Hunt  regarding  the  proprietary 
rights  of  The  Examiner  and  the  publication  of  the  Wishing 
Cap  Papers  in  that  paper,  made  Hunt  seize  at  the  first  oppor- 
tunity by  which  he  might  return  home.  From  Paris,  on  his 
way  to  England,  he  wrote:  "  li  I  delayed  I  might  be  pinned 
forever  to  a  distance,  like  a  fluttering  bird  to  a  wall,  and  so 
die  in  helpless  yearning.  I  have  been  mistaken.  During  my 
strength  my  weakness  perhaps,  was  only  apparent ;  now  that  I 
am  weaker,  indignation  has  given  a  fillip  to  my  strength. "^^^ 
From  his  severance  with  The  Examiner  and  the  publication  of 
Bacchus  in  Tuscany  in  1825,  Hunt  was  idle  until  1828.  Then, 
pressed  by  his  obligation  to  Colburn  and  stung  by  the  mis- 
representations of  the  press  regarding  his  relations  with  Byron 
in  Italy,  he  scored  even,  as  he  thought,  by  producing  Lord 
Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries,  the  blunder  of  his  life 
and  the  one  blot  upon  his  honor.  In  addition  to  the  part  deal- 
ing with  Byron,  it  contained  autobiographical  reminiscences  and 
memoirs  of  Shelley,  Keats,  Moore,  Lamb  and  others.  It  went 
rapidly  through  three  editions.  The  body  of  the  work  is  a 
discussion  of  the  defects  of  Byron's  character  and  a  detailed 
analysis  of  his  actions.  In  brief,  he  is  charged  with  insincerity 
in  the  cause  of  liberty;  an  impatience  of  any  despotism  save 
his  own;  a  vain  pride  of  rank,  although  his  friends  were  of 
humble  origin ;  a  "  libelling  all  around  "  of  friends ;  an  ignor- 
ance of  real  love,  consanguineous  or  sexual;  coarseness  in 
speaking  of  women  or  to  them;^-°  a  voluptuous  indolence; 
weak  impulses ;  a  habit  of  miscellaneous  confidences  and  exag- 

^^''  Letters  and  Journals,  VI,  p.  174,  1823. 

"'Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries,  preface,  p.  3. 

"'  Clarke,  Recollection  of  Writers,  p.  230. 

"^  But  compare  Hunt's  own  remarks  on  p.  40. 


117 

geration;  untruthfulness;  susceptibility  to  influence;  avarice 
even  in  his  patriotism  and  debauchery ;  a  willingness  to  receive 
petty  obligations;  jealousy  of  the  great  and  small;  no  powers 
of  conversation  and  a  want  of  self-possession ;  bad  temper  and 
self-will ;  an  inordinate  desire  for  flattery ;  egotism  and  love 
of  notoriety.  More  petty  accusations  are  excess  in  his  eating 
and  drinking,  though  Hunt  complains  that  Byron  would  not 
"  drink  like  a  lord  " ;  his  fondness  for  communicating  unpleasant 
tidings;  his  inclination  to  the  mock  heroic;  his  effeminacy  and 
old-womanish  superstition;  his  easily-aroused  suspicions;  his 
imitativeness  in  writing  poetry;  his  slight  knowledge  of  lan- 
guages; his  physical  cowardice.  The  virtues  of  this  monster, 
small  in  number  and  grudgingly  allowed,  were  admitted  to  be 
good  horsemanship,  good  looks,  a  delicate  hand,  amusing 
powers  of  mimicry,  pleasantry  in  his  cups,  masterly  swimming. 
Unfortunately  these  statements  were  usually  damned  with  a 
"but"  or  "yet." 

While  it  is  now  generally  believed  that  many  of  the  accusa- 
tions made  by  Hunt  were  true,^-^  inasmuch  as  they  are  con- 

^^  The  biographers  of  the  two  men  have  taken  various  attitudes  toward 
the  value  of  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries.  Gait  says 
that  the  pains  Hunt  took  to  elaborate  faults  of  Byron  make  one  think 
Hunt  was  treated  according  to  his  deserts,  and  that  the  troubles  he  labored 
under  may  have  caused  him  to  misapprehend  Byron's  jocularity  for 
sarcasm,  and  caprice  for  insolence.  {Life  of  Byron,  p.  260.)  Garnett 
considers  the  book  a  "  corrective  of  merely  idealized  estimates  of  Lord 
Byron,"  and  its  "  reception  more  unfavorable  than  its  deserts."  (Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica,  "  Byron,"  Ninth  Edition.)  Nichol  thinks  that  while  the 
book  was  prompted  by  uncharitableness  and  egotism,  Byron's  faults  were 
only  slightly  magnified:  that  the  poetic  insight,  the  cosmopolitan  sympathy 
and  courage  of  Hunt  have  given  a  view  that  nothing  elese  could  have  done. 
{Life  of  Byron,  p.  165.)  R.  B.  Johnson  thinks  that  it  was  a  correct  esti- 
mate written  in  self-justification.  Undoubtedly  it  should  not  have  come 
from  Hunt,  yet  if  it  had  not  been  written  Hunt  would  not  have  been 
defended  nor  Byron  so  well  known.  He  says  there  is  "  no  reason  to 
regret  any  part  of  the  affair  but  the  heated  and  persistent  abuse  with 
which  one  of  the  most  sensitive  and  humane  of  men  has  been  loaded  on 
account  of  it."  (Leigh  Hunt,  p.  50.)  Noble  says  that  "  Byron's  friends 
met  unpleasant  truths  by  still  more  unpleasant  falsehoods."  (The  Sonnet 
in  England,  p.  115.)  Alexander  Ireland,  says  the  book  was  the  great 
blunder  of  Hunt's  life,  "  ought  not  to  have  been  written,  far  less  pub- 
lished."    (Dictionary  of  National  Biography.) 


118 

firmed  in  large  part  by  contemporary  evidence,  and  as  truth ful- 
ne.ss  was  one  of  Hunt's  dominant  traits,  yet,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  is  quite  necessary  to  make  large  allowance  for  the  point  of 
view  and  the  color  given  by  prejudice  and  bitterness  of  spirit. 
That  Hunt  told  only  the  truth  does  not  justify  the  injury  in  the 
slightest,  for  he  had  slept  under  Byron's  roof  and  eaten  of  his 
bread.  The  obligations  conferred  were  not  exactly  those  of 
benefactor  to  suppliant;  they  were  perhaps  no  more  than 
Hunt's  due  in  the  light  of  the  responsibility  voluntarily  as- 
sumed by  Byron ;  yet  they  could  not  be  destroyed  or  forgotten 
because  of  a  refusal  to  acknowledge  them.  Worse  still.  Hunt's 
motives  proceeded  from  impecuniosity  and  revenge.  Such 
petty  gossip  of  private  afifairs  was  worthy  of  a  smaller  and 
meaner  soul.  That  Hunt  did  not  have  the  sanction  of  his  own 
judgment  and  conscience  is  clearly  seen  in  the  preface  to  the 
first  edition  where  he  confesses  an  unwilling  hand  and  gives 
as  a  reason  for  the  change  of  scheme  a  too  long  holiday  taken 
after  the  advance  of  money  from  Colburn.  He  says  that  the 
book  would  never  have  been  written  at  all,  or  consigned  to  the 
flames  when  finished,  if  he  could  have  repaid  the  money .^-^ 
His  one  poor  defense  is  that  "  Byron  talked  freely  of  me  and 
mine,"  that  the  public  had  talked,  and  that  Byron  knew  how  he 
felt.^-^ 

The  book  had  a  very  large  circulation.  But  Hunt,  who  had 
hoped  to  defend  himself  in  this  manner  from  the  calumnies 
afloat  since  the  failure  of  The  Liberal,  brought  down  a  storm 
of  abuse  from  the  press  that  resulted  in  his  degradation  and 
^  Byron's  canonization.  Moore's  welcome  was  a  poem,  The 
Living  Dog  and  the  Dead  Lion}-^  Hunt's  friends  replied  with 
The  Giant  and  the  Dzvarf}^^  In  his  life  of  Byron  published 
some  years  later,  Moore  speaks  reservedly  of  the  book,  merely 
saying  it  had  sunk  into  deserved  oblivion. ^^^ 

^^  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries,  p.  89. 

^-^  Ibid,,  pp.  20-21. 

"*  Byron,  Letters  and  Journals,  II,  p.  208. 

^'Ibid.,  II,  p.  461. 

'^*  Thornton  Hunt,  in  his  edition  of  his  father's  Correspondence,  1862, 
in  this  connection  defended  Byron,  and  credited  him  with  "  a  strong  sym- 
pathy with  all  that  was  beautiful  and  generous,  with  a  desire  to  do  right, 


119 

Hunt's  public  apology  and  reparation,  in  so  far  as  such  lay 
in  his  power,  were  first  made  in  1847  i^  ^  Saunter  Through  the 
West  End:  "  No.  140  (formerly  No.  13  of  what  was  Piccadilly 
Terrace)  was  the  last  house  which  Byron  inhabited  in  Eng- 
land. Nobody  needs  to  be  told  what  a  great  wit  and  fine  poet 
he  was :  but  everybody  does  not  know  that  he  was  by  nature  a 
genial  and  generous  man  spoiled  by  the  most  untoward  cir- 
cumstances in  early  life.  He  vexed  his  enemies,  and  some- 
times his  friends ;  but  his  very  advantages  have  been  hard  upon 
him,  and  subjected  him  to  all  sorts  of  temptations.  May  peace 
rest  upon  his  infirmities,  and  his  fame  brighten  as  it  ad- 
vances."^-^  In  1848,  he  wrote  in  praise  of  the  Ave  Maria 
stanza  in  Don  Juan.^^^  And  finally  and  completely  in  his 
Autobiography  he  apologized  for  the  heat  and  venom  of  Lord 
Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries: 

"  I  wrote  nothing  which  I  did  not  feel  to  be  true,  or  think  so.  But  I 
can  say  with  Alamanni,  that  I  was  then  a  young  man,  and  that  I  am 
now  advanced  in  years.  I  can  say,  that  I  was  agitated  by  grief  and  anger, 
and  that  I  am  now  free  from  anger.  I  can  say,  that  I  was  far  more  alive 
to  other  people's  defects  than  to  my  own,  and  that  I  am  now  sufficiently 
sensible  of  my  own  to  show  to  others  the  charity  which  I  need  myself. 
I  can  say,  moreover,  that  apart  from  a  little  allowance  for  provocation,  I 
do  not  think  it  right  to  exhibit  what  is  amiss,  or  may  be  thought  amiss, 
in  the  character  of  a  fellow-creature,  out  of  any  feeling  but  unmistakable 
sorrow,  or  the  wish  to  lessen  evils  which  society  itself  may  have  caused. 

"  Lord  Byron,  with  respect  to  the  points  on  which  he  erred  and  suffered 
(for  on  all  others,  a  man  like  himself,  poet  and  wit,  could  not  but  give 
and  receive  pleasure),  was  the  victim  of  a  bad  bringing  up,  of  a  series  of 
false  positions  in  society,  of  evils  arising  from  the  mistakes  of  society 
itself,  of  a  personal  disadvantage  (which  his  feelings  exaggerated),  nay, 
of  his  very  advantages  of  person,  and  of  a  face  so  handsome  as  to  render 
with  strong  tendencies  of  natural  affection,"  and  declared  that  his  fickleness 
had  been  "  nurtured  by  an  excessively  bad  training."  In  exoneration  of 
Hunt  he  said  that  if  "  disappointment  and  the  fervour  of  a  new  literary 
work — which  often  draws  the  pen  beyond  its  original  intention — led  Leigh 
Hunt  into  a  book  that  was  too  severe,  perhaps  too  one-sided  in  its  views, 
he  himself  afterwards  corrected  the  one-sidedness,  and  recalled  to  mind 
the  earlier  and  undoubtedly  the  more  correct  impression  he  had  had  of 
Lord  Byron."     I,  202-203. 

^-''  P.  14.     For  an  apology  made  six  years  earlier  see  a  letter  from  Hunt 
to  Thomas  Moore.     (Correspondence,   II,  p.   38.) 
'^  Hunt,  A  Jar  of  Honey  from  Mt.  Hybia,  p.  155. 


120 

him  an  object  of  admiration.  Even  the  lameness,  of  which  he  had  such 
a  resentment,  only  softened  the  admiration  with  tenderness. 

"  But  he  did  not  begin  life  under  good  influences.  He  had  a  mother, 
herself,  in  all  probability,  the  victim  of  bad  training,  who  would  fling  the 
dishes  from  table  at  his  head,  and  tell  him  he  would  be  a  scoundrel 
like  his  father.  His  father,  who  was  cousin  to  the  previous  lord,  had 
been  what  is  called  a  man  upon  town,  and  was  neither  rich  nor  very 
respectable.  The  young  lord,  whose  means  had  not  yet  recovered  them- 
selves, went  to  school,  noble  but  poor,  expecting  to  be  in  the  ascendant 
with  his  title,  yet  kept  down  by  the  inconsistency  of  his  condition.  He 
left  school  to  put  on  the  cap  with  the  gold  tuft,  which  is  worshipped  at 
college : — he  left  college  to  fall  into  some  of  the  worst  hands  on  the 
town : — his  first  productions  were  contemptuously  criticised,  and  his  genius 
was  thus  provoked  into  satire : — his  next  were  overpraised,  which  in- 
creased his  self-love : — he  married  when  his  temper  had  been  soured  by 
difficulties,  and  his  will  and  pleasure  pampered  by  the  sex : — and  he  went 
companionless  into  a  foreign  country,  where  all  this  perplexity  could  repose 
without  being  taught  better,  and  where  the  sense  of  a  lost  popularity  could 
be  drowned  in  license. 

"  I  am  sorry  I  ever  wrote  a  syllable  respecting  Lord  Byron  which  might 
have  been  spared.  I  have  still  to  relate  my  connection  with  him,  but  it 
will  be  related  in  a  diff'erent  manner.  Pride,  it  is  said,  will  have  a  fall ; 
and  I  must  own,  that  on  this  subject  I  have  experienced  the  truth  of  the 
saying.  I  had  prided  myself — I  should  pride  myself  now  if  I  had  not 
been  thus  rebuked — on  not  being  one  of  those  who  talk  against  others. 
I  went  counter  to  this  feeling  in  a  book ;  and  to  crown  the  absurdity  of 
the  contradiction,  I  am  foolish  enough  to  suppose  that  the  very  fact  of  my 
so  doing  would  show  that  I  had  done  it  in  no  other  instance !  that  having 
been  thus  public  in  the  error,  credit  would  be  given  me  for  never  having 
been  privately  so !  Such  are  the  delusions  inflicted  on  us  by  self-lovcv 
When  the  consequence  was  represented  to  me  as  characterized  by  my 
enemies,  I  felt,  enemies  though  they  were,  as  if  I  blushed  from  head  to  foot. 
It  is  true  I  had  been  goaded  to  the  task  by  misrepresentation : — I  had 
resisted  every  other  species  of  temptation  to  do  it: — and,  after  all,  I  said 
more  in  his  excuse,  and  less  to  his  disadvantage,  than  many  of  those  who 
reproved  me.  But  enough.  I  owed  the  acknowledgment  to  him  and  to 
myself ;  and  I  shall  proceed  on  my  course  with  a  sigh  for  both,  and  I 
trust  in  the  good  will  of  the  sincere." "" 

^^  n,  pp.  90-93. 


CHAPTER   V 

Characteristics  of  the  "  Cockney  School " — Reasons  for  Tory  enmity — 
Establishment  of  Blackwood's  Magazine  and  the  Quarterly  Review — Their 
methods  of  attack — Other  targets — Authorship  of  anonymous  articles — Mem- 
bers  of  the   Cockney  group — Byron — Hunt — Keats — Shelley — Hazlitt. 

The  word  "  Cockney "  says  Bulwer-Lytton,  signifies  the 
"  archetype  of  the  Londoner  east  of  Temple  Bar,  and  is  as 
grotesquely  identified  with  the  Bells  of  Bow  as  Quasimodo 
with  those  of  Notre  Dame."^  The  epithet  remains  doubtful  in 
origin  but  is  proverbially  significant  of  odium  and  of  ridicule. 
R.  H.  Home  asserts  that,  in  its  first  application,  it  meant 
merely  "  pastoral,  minus  nature."-  The  word  did  not  long 
carry  so  harmless  a  connotation.  It  was  first  applied  to  Hunt 
by  the  Tory  journals  in  1817  and,  in  the  phrase  "  Cockney 
School,"  was  gradually  extended  until  it  included  most  of  his 
associates.  The  group  of  men  thus  arbitrarily  banded  together 
did  not  form  a  school  or  cult,  and  themselves  resented  such  a 
classification.  They  differed  widely  in  their  fundamental 
principles  of  life  and  art.  They  were  not  all  of  one  vocation. 
On  the  other  hand  they  had  certain  superficial  points  in  com- 
mon which  made  them  collectively  vulnerable  to  the  dart  of  the 
enemy.  They  were  Londoners^  by  birth  or  by  adoption ;  with 
the  exception  of  Shelley  they  may  all  be  said  to  have  belonged 

^Charles  Lamb  and  Some  of  His  Companions  in  the  Quarterly  Review 
of  January,  1867. 

^A  New  Spirit  of  the  Age,  p.  182. 

^  Near  the  close  of  his  life  Hunt  wrote:  "  The  jests  about  London  and  the 
Cockneys  did  not  affect  me  in  the  least,  as  far  as  my  faith  was  con- 
cerned. They  might  as  well  have  said  that  Hampstead  was  not  beautiful, 
or  Richmond  lovely ;  or  that  Chaucer  and  Milton  were  Cockneys  when 
they  went  out  of  London  to  lie  on  the  grass  and  look  at  the  daisies.  The 
Cockney  School  is  the  most  illustrious  in  England ;  for,  to  say  nothing  of 
Pope  and  Gray,  who  were  both  veritable  Cockneys,  '  born  within  the  sound 
of  Bow  Bell,'  Milton  was  so  too ;  and  Chaucer  and  Spenser  were  both 
natives  of  the  city.  Of  the  four  greatest  English  poets,  Shakespeare  only 
was  not  a  Londoner."     {Autobiography,  II,  p.  197.) 

121 


122 

to  the  middle  class ;  the  most  Cockneyfied  of  them  had  certain 
vulgar  mannerisms ;  they  egotistically  paraded  their  personal 
affairs  in  public ;  they  praised  each  other  somewhat  f ulsomely 
in  dedications  and  elsewhere,  though  not  always  to  the  full 
satisfaction  of  everybody  concerned;  they  presented  each  other 
with  wreaths  of  bay,  laurel,  and  roses,  and  with  locks  of  hair; 
they  agreed  in  liking  Thomas  Moore  and  in  disliking  Southey ; 
they  moved  with  complacency  within  a  limited  circle  to  the 
exclusion  of  a  large  city ;  in  general  they  were  liberal  in  politics 
and  in  religion ;  they  were  in  revolt  against  French  criticism ; 
they  chose  Elizabethan  or  Italian  models,  and,  as  a  rule,  they 
conceitedly  ignored  or  contemned  contemporary  writers. 

The  gatherings  of  the  coterie  have  been  nowhere  better 
described  than  by  Cowden  Clarke : 

"  Evenings  of  Mozartian  operatic  and  chamber  music  at  Vincent  Novello's 
own  house,  where  Leigh  Hunt,  Shelley,  Keats  and  the  Lambs  were  invited 
guests ;  the  brilliant  supper  parties  at  the  alternate  dwellings  of  the  No- 
vellos,  the  Hunts  and  the  Lambs,  who  had  mutually  agreed  that  bread  and 
cheese,  with  celery,  and  Elia's  immortalized  '  Lutheran  beer '  were  to  be 
the  sole  cates  provided ;  the  meetings  at  the  theatres,  when  Munden,  Dow- 
ton,  Liston,  Bannister,  Elliston  and  Fanny  Kelly  were  on  the  stage ;  the 
picnic  repasts  enjoyed  together  by  appointment  in  the  fields  that  lay 
spread  in  green  breadth  and  luxuriance  between  the  west  end  of  Oxford 
Street  and  the  western  slope  of  Hampstead  Hill — are  things  never  to  be 
forgotten."  * 

Miss  Mitford  relates  a  ludicrous  incident  of  one  of  these 
meetings : 

"  Leigh  Hunt  (not  the  notorious  Mr.  Henry  Hunt,  but  the  fop,  poet  and 
politician  of  the  'Examiner')  is  a  great  keeper  of  birthdays.  He  was 
celebrating  that  of  Haydn,  the  great  composer — giving  a  dinner,  crown- 
ing his  bust  with  laurels,  berhyming  the  poor  dear  German,  and  conduct- 
ing an  apotheosis  in  full  form.  Somebody  told  Mr.  Haydon  they  were 
celebrating  his  birthday.  So  off  he  trotted  to  Hampstead,  and  bolted  into 
the  company-^made  a  very  fine  animated  speech — thanked  him  most  sin- 
cerely for  what  they  had  done  him  and  the  arts  in  his  person."  ^ 

*  Recollections  of  Writers,  p.  19.  Other  accounts  of  these  suppers  are 
to  be  found  in  Hazlitt's  On  the  Conversations  of  Authors;  in  the  works 
dealing  with  Charles  Lamb;  and  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine,  November,  1900. 

"  The  Life  of  Mary  Russell  Mitford.  Edited  by  A.  J.  K.  L'Estrange,  New 
York,  1870,  I,  p.  370,  November  12,  1819. 


123 

x\t  one  time  the  set  became  violently  vegetarian.  The  enthu- 
siasm came  to  a  sudden  end,  as  narrated  by  Joseph  Severn : 

"  Leigh  Hunt  most  eloquently  discussed  the  charms  and  advantages  of 
these  vegetable  banquets,  depicting  in  glowing  words  the  cauliflowers  swim- 
ming in  melted  butter,  and  the  peas  and  beans  never  profaned  with  animal 
gravy.  In  the  midst  of  his  rhapsody  he  was  interrupted  by  the  venerable 
Wordsworth,  who  begged  permission  to  ask  a  question.  '  If,'  he  said,  '  by 
chance  of  good  luck  they  ever  met  with  a  caterpillar,  they  thanked  their 
stars  for  the  delicious  morsel  of  animal  food.'  This  absurdity  all  came 
to  an  end  by  an  ugly  discovery.  Haydon,  whose  ruddy  face  had  kept  the 
other  enthusiasts  from  sinking  under  their  scanty  diet — for  they  clung 
fondly  to  the  hope  that  they  would  become  like  him,  although  they  in- 
creased daily  in  pallor  and  leanness — this  Haydon  was  discovered  one  day 
coming  out  of  a  chop-house.  He  was  promptly  taxed  with  treachery,  when 
he  honestly  confessed  that  every  day  after  the  vegetable  repast  he  ate  a 
good  beef-steak.  This  fact  plunged  the  others  in  despair,  and  Leigh  Hunt 
assured  me  that  on  vegetable  diet  his  constitution  had  received  a  blow 
from  which  he  had  never  recovered.  With  Shelley  it  was  different,  for  he 
was  by  nature  formed  to  regard  animal  food  repulsively."  * 

The  causes  of  the  enmity  of  the  press  were  political  rather 
than  literary  or  personal  and  have  already  been  sufficiently 
dwelt  upon  in  the  preceding  chapters.  The  strong  rivalry  be- 
tween Edinburgh  and  London  as  publishing  strongholds  inten- 
sified the  strife.  Hunt  in  particular  had  centered  attention 
upon  himself  by  his  persistent  and  violent  attacks  on  Gifford 
and  Southey  for  several  years  previous  to  1817.  Besides  The 
Examiner's  persistent  allusions  to  these  two  unregenerates,  a 
savage  diatribe  had  appeared  in  the  Feast  of  the  Poets,  which 
alluded  to  Gifford's  humble  origin  and  mediocre  ability,  charged 
him  with  being  a  government  tool,  and  continued :  "  But  a  vile, 
peevish  temper,  the  more  inexcusable  in  its  indulgence,  because 
he  appears  to  have  had  early  warning  of  its  effects,  breaks  out 
in  every  page  of  his  criticism,  and  only  renders  his  affected 
grinning  the  more  obnoxious  ...  I  pass  over  the  nauseous 
epistle  to  Peter  Pindar,  and  even  notes  to  his  Baviad  and 
Moeviad,  where  though  less  vulgar  in  his  language,  he  has  a 
great  deal  of  the  pert  cant  and  snip-snap  which  he  deprecates."^ 
During  1817,  The  Examiner  had  concerned  itself  particularly 

*  Sharp,  The  Life  and  Letters  of  Joseph  Severn,  p.  33, 
^  Notes,  pp.  57-61. 


124 

with  Southey.  He  had  been  called  an  apostate,  a  hypocrite, 
and  almost  every  other  name  in  Hunt's  abusive  vocabulary. 
Sir  Walter  Scott  had  not  been  spared.  His  politics  were  said 
to  be  easily  estimated  by  the  "  simple  fact,  that  of  all  the  advo- 
cates of  Charles  the  Second,  he  is  the  least  scrupulous  in  men- 
tioning his  crimes,  because  he  is  the  least  abashed ; "  his  com- 
mand of  prose  was  declared  equal  to  nothing  beyond  "  a  plain 
statement  or  a  brief  piece  of  criticism ;  "  his  poetry  "  a  little 
thinking  conveyed  in  a  great  many  words."®  Hunt  thus  se- 
cured to  himself,  through  offensive  and  aggressive  abuse,  the 
hostility  of  the  Tories  both  in  England  and  in  Scotland.  His 
weaknesses  and  affectations  made  him  a  conspicuous  and  assail- 
able target  for  the  inevitable  return  fire." 

The  establishment  by  the  Tories  of  the  Quarterly  Review 
in  1809  and  of  Blackwood's  Magazine  in  1817  was  with  the 
view  of  opposing  and,  if  possible,  of  sn^^ressmgih^  Edinburgh 
Review  and  The  Examiner.  The  brunt  of  the  hostility  fell 
upon  the  latter,  for  Hunt,  by  reason  of  his  extreme  social  and 
religious  policy,  could  not  always  rally  the  Edinburgh  Review 
to  his  support.  With  the  founding  of  the  London  Magazine 
in  1820  he  had  a  new  ally  in  its  editor,  John  Scott,  but  the  war 
had  then  already  raged  for  three  years,  and  Scott  fell  a  victim 
to  it  in  two  years'  time.^"     By  a  process  of  elimination  Scott 

^Ibid.,  pp.  62-68. 

®  Other  controversies,  such  as  the  one  with  Antoine  Dubost,  show  Hunt's 
aggressiveness.  Dubost  had  sold  a  painting  of  Damocles  to  his  patron,  a 
Mr.  Hope.  The  latter  became  convinced  that  the  author  was  an  imposter 
and  tore  the  signature  from  the  picture.  In  retaliation  Dubost  painted  and 
exhibited  Beauty  and  the  Beast,  a  caricature  of  the  whole  incident.  The 
Examiner  accused  him  of  forgery  and  rank  ingratitude.  Hunt  does  not 
seem  to  have  had  any  particular  proof  or  knowledge  on  the  subject,  yet 
he  employed  scathing  denunciation  in  writing  of  it.  Dubost  replied  and 
asserted  that  Hunt  was  Hope's  hireling,  and  that  he  had  "  ransacked  the 
whole  calendar  of  scurrility,  and  hunted  for  nick-names  through  all  the 
common  places  of  blackguardism."  (Dubost,  An  Appeal  to  the  Public 
against   the  Calumnies  of  the  Examiner,  London,  n.  d.,  p.  9.) 

"  He  undertook  a  vindication  of  the  Cockney  School  in  a  series  of  four 
articles,  in  which  he  pointed  out  the  "  mean  insincerity,"  the  "  vulgar 
slander,"  the  "  mouthing  cant,"  the  "  shabby  spite,"  the  falsehoods  and  the 
recantations    of    Blackwood's.     The    description    of    the    conditions,    under 


125 

fixed  the  identity  of  "  Z  " — such  was  the  only  signature  of  the 
articles  on  the  Cockney  School  in  Blackzvood's — upon  Lock- 
hart.  He  also  asserted  that  Lockhart  was  the  editor  of  the 
magazine.  Lockhart  demanded  an  apology.  His  friend  Christie 
took  up  the  quarrel.  In  the  duel  which  followed  Scott  was 
fatally  wounded.  His  death  followed  Keats's  within  four 
days. 

The  method  of  attack  with  the  Quarterly  and  with  Black- 
wood's was  much  the  same.  They  differed  chiefly  in  the  style 
of  approach.  The  former  may  be  compared  to  heavy  artillery, 
slow,  cumbrous  and  crushing.  The  reviews  indeed  often  verge 
on  dullness  and  stupidity.  Neither  Gifford  nor  Southey  seemed 
to  have  been  blessed  with  the  saving  grace  of  humor  in  dealing 
with  the  Cockney  School.  Blackzvood's,  on  the  other  hand, 
had  too  much,  for  whenever  one  of  the  so-called  Cockneys  was 
mentioned,  its  contributors  wallowed  in  the  mire  of  coarse 
buffoonery  and  cruel  satire,  disgusting  scandal  and  vulgar 
parody.  The  only  counter-irritant  to  such  a  dose  is  the  clever 
joking  and  keen  humor;  but  even  when  this  is  clean,  which  is 
rare,  the  whole  is  rendered  unpalatable  by  the  thought  of  its 
cruelty  and  of  its  frequent  falsity.  Furthermore,  Blackwood's 
was  more  merciless  in  its  persecution  than  the  Quarterly  in 
that  it  was  untiring.  It  was  perpetually  discharging  a  fresh 
fusilade.  Both  magazines  disguised  their  real  motives  under 
a  cloak  of  religious  zeal  and  monarchical  loyalty. 

While  Hunt  did  much  to  bring  the  hornet's  nest  about  his 
ears,  he  was  not  wholly  deserving  of  the  amount,  and  not  at  all 
of  the  kind,  of  stinging  calumny  that  he  had  to  endure. 
Neither  were  the  members  of  the  Cockney  School  the  only 
ones  who  provoked  such  antagonism  from  the  same  magazine. 
Other  famous  libels  of  Blackzvood's  that  should  be  mentioned 
to  show  the  disposition  of  its  controllers  were  the  Chaldee 

which  Scott  pictured  the  articles  of  his  enemies  to  have  been  written, 
smacks  of  the  mocking  humor  of  Blackwood's  itself:  "a  redolency  of 
Leith-ale,  and  tobacco  smoke,  which  floats  about  all  the  pleasantry  in 
question, — giving  one  the  idea  of  its  facetious  articles  having  been  written 
on  the  slopped  table  of  a  tavern  parlour  in  the  back-wynd,  after  the 
convives  had  retired,  and  left  the  author  to  solitude,  pipe-ashes,  and  the 
dregs  of  black-strap." 


126 

Manuscript;  the  Madonna  of  Dresden  and  other  effusions  of 
the  "Baron  von  Lauerwinckel" ;  the  Diary  and  Horcu  Sinicce 
of  Ensign  O'Doherty;  and  the  Diary  of  William  Wastle,  Black- 
wood and  Dr.  Morris.  Letter  to  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Bart.,  on  the 
Moral  and  other  Characteristics  of  the  Ebony  and  Shandrydan 
School,^'^  cites  a  full  list  of  Blackzvood's  yictims.  These,  besides 
those  of  the  Cockney  School,  were  said  to  be  Jeffrey,  Professor 
Playfair,  Professor  Dugald  Stewart,  Professor  Leslie,  James 
Macintosh,  Lord  Brougham,  Moore,  Professor  David  Ricardo, 
Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Pringle,  Dalzell,  Cleghorn,  Graham, 
Sharpe,  Jameson,  and  Hogg,  the  Ettrick  Shepherd.  The  char- 
acters in  Nodes  Amhrosiana:,  Ticklers,  Scorpions  and  Shep- 
herds, were  said  by  the  pamphleteer  to  respectively  tickle,  sting 
and  stultify,  and  to  make  a  business  "of  insulting  worth,  offend- 
ing delicacy,  caluminating  genius,  and  outraging  the  decencies 
and  violating  all  the  sanctities  of  life."  Their  weapons  were 
"  loathsome  billingsgate  and  brutality,"  and  "  sublime  bathos." 
An  interesting  statement,  not  elsewhere  found,  is  made  by  the 
anonymous  author  of  the  pamphlet  that  the  proprietor  of  the 
Black  Bull  Inn  imputed  the  death  of  his  wife  to  the  first  volume 
of  Peter's  Letters  to  his  Kinsfolk,  a  series  similar  to  the  Noctes 
Ambrosiance.  Sir  Walter  Scott  is  told  that  he  cannot  remain 
innocent  if  he  remains  indifferent  to  the  machinations  of  the 
"  Ebony  and  Shandrydan  School " — as  the  writer  pleases  to 
call  the  Blackzvood's  group.  Another  interesting  pamphlet  of 
like  nature  is  The  Scorpion  Critic  Unmasked;  or  Animadver- 
sions on  a  Pretended  Review  of  "  Fleiirs,  a  Poem,  in  Four 
Books,"  which  appeared  in  Blackzvood's  Edinburgh  Magazine 
for  June,  1821,  in  a  Letter  to  a  Friend.'^^  Blackwood's  had 
called  Nathaniel  John  Hollingsworth,  the  author  of  the  poem, 
and  others  of  his  type,  the  "  Leg  of  Mutton  School. "^^     Nothing 

"Published  in  Edinburgh  in  1820  and  signed  by  "An  American  Scotch- 
man." ^  Published  in  Newcastle  in  1821. 

"  The  School  was  thus  described  in  Blackwood's :  "  The  chief  constella- 
tions, in  this  poetical  firmament,  consist  of  led  captains,  and  clerical  hangers- 
on,  whose  pleasure,  and  whose  business,  it  is,  to  celebrate  in  tuneful  verse, 
the  virtues  of  some  angelic  patron,  who  keeps  a  good  table,  and  has  in- 
terest with  the  archbishop,  or  the  India  House.  Verily  they  have  their 
reward."  In  other  words  this  group  was  composed  of  diners-out  or  para- 
sites,   and   sycophants    for   livings   and   military   appointments. 


127 

in  fact  seems  to  have  given  tliis  magazine  so  much  malicious 
deHght  as  to  create  schools,  perhaps  in  a  spirit  of  rivalry  with 
the  "  Lake  School "  of  the  Edinburgh  Review.  In  the  pre- 
ceding April  the  "  Manchester  School "  had  been  presented  by 
Blackwood's  to  the  public.  Hollingsworth  in  turn  created  the 
"  Scorpion  School "  in  order  to  deride  Blackzvood's.  Other 
pamphlets  of  the  same  kind  were  Rebellion  again  Gulliver;  or 
R-D-C-L-SM  in  Lilliput.  A  Poetical  Fragment  from  a  Lilli- 
putian Manuscript,  an  anonymous  publication  which  appeared 
in  Edinburgh  in  1820;  Aspersions  anszvered:  an  explanatory 
Statement,  advanced  to  the  Public  at  Large,  and  to  Every 
Reader  of  The  Quarterly  Reviezv  in  Particular;^*"  and  Another 
Article  for  the  Quarterly  Revieiv;^^  both  by  William  Hone 
in  reply  to  the  charge  of  irreligion  made  by  the  Quarterly 
against  him.  ^' 

William  Blackwood,  John  Wilson  or  "  Christopher  North," 
Lockhart,  and  perhaps  Maginn,  share  the  blame  severally  of 
Blackwood's;  while  in  the  case  of  the  Quarterly,  to  Gifford  and 
Southey,  already  mentioned,  must  be  added  Sir  Walter  Scott 
and  Croker.  The  two  last  certainly  countenanced  the  actions 
of  the  others,  even  if  they  took  no  more  active  part.  There 
seems  to  be  no  way  of  determining  the  individual  authorship 
of  the  various  articles.  It  was  a  secret  jealously  guarded  at  the 
time  and  it  is  unlikely  that  any  further  disclosures  will  come 
to  light.  The  victims  themselves  hazarded  as  many  guesses  as 
more  recent  critics  with  no  greater  degree  of  certainty.  Leigh 
Hunt  thought  that  the  articles  were  written  by  Sir  Walter 
Scott  '^^  Hazlitt  said,  "  To  pay  those  fellows  in  their  ozvn  coin, 
the  way  would  be  to  begin  with  Walter  Scott  and  have  at  his 
clump  foot;"^''  Charles  Dilke  thought  that  the  articles  were 
written  by  Lockhart  with  the  encouragement  of  Scott  ;^^  Hay- 
don  thought  that  "  Z "  was  Terry  the  actor,  an  intimate  of 
the  Blackwood  party,  who  had  been  exasperated  because  Hunt 

"  Published  in  London,  1824. 

'"Published  in  London  also  in  1824. 

"Keats,  Works,  IV,  p.  66. 

"  C.  C.  Clarke,  Recollections  of  Writers,  p.   147. 

^^  Keats,  Works,  IV,  p.  66. 


128 

had  failed  to  notice  him  in  The  Examiner ;^^  Shelley  fancied 
that  the  articles  in  the  Quarterly  were  by  Southey,  and,  on  his 
denial,  attributed  them  to  Henry  Hart  Milman.^"  Mrs.  Oli- 
phant  in  her  two  ponderous  volumes,  William  Blackwood  and 
His  Sons,  practically  asserts  that  "  Z "  was  Lockhart.^^  If 
the  extent  of  her  research  is  to  be  the  gauge  of  its  value,  her 
opinion  is  a  very  valuable  one.  Mr.  Colvin  advances  the  theory 
that  "  Z  "  was  Wilson  or  Lockhart,  possibly  revised  by  William 
Blackwood. ^^  Mr.  Courthope  thinks  that  Croker  was  the 
author  of  the  articles  on  Endymion  in  the  Quarterly.^^  Mr. 
Herford  thinks  that  the  whole  campaign  against  the  Cockney 
School  was  "  largely  worked  out  "  by  Lockhart.^* 

Hunt,  Shelley,  Hazlitt  and  Keats  were  the  chief  targets  in 
the  Cockney  School.  The  attacks  on  each  of  these  are  of  such 
length  as  to  require  separate  discussion  and  will  be  returned  to 
later.  Those  who  attained  lesser  notoriety  were  Charles  Lamb, 
Haydon,  Barry  Cornwall,  John  Hamilton  Reynolds,  Cornelius 
Webb,  Charles  Wells,  Charles  Dilke,  Charles  Lloyd,  P.  G.  Pat- 
more  and  John  Ketch  (Abraham  Franklin).  Those  who 
moved  within  the  same  circle  and  who  may  by  attraction  be 
considered  Cockneys  are  Charles  Cowden  Clarke  and  his  wife, 
Vincent  Novello,  Charles  Armitage  Brown,  the  Olliers,  Horace 
and  James  Smith,  Douglas  Jerrold,  Joseph  Severn,  Laman 
Blanchard,  Thomas  Noon  Talfourd,  Thomas  Love  Peacock, 
and  perhaps  Thomas  Hood. 

Charles  Lamb  was  first  attacked  in  1820.  He  had  written 
essays  somewhat  in  the  manner  of  Hunt  and  he  was  a  con- 
tributor to  the  London  Magazine,  which  had  blundered  by 
censuring  Castlereagh,  Canning,  and  Wilberforce.  The  much- 
despised  Hazlitt  was  another  of  its  force.  Accordingly, 
"  Elia "  was  pronounced  a  "  Cockney  Scribbler,"  Christ's 
Hospital  an  essay  full  of  offensive  and  reprehensible  personali- 

^^  Life  of  Benjamin  Robert  Haydon,  p.  349. 

^  Dowden,  Life  of  Shelley,  II,  p.  302. 

"I.  P-   133'  "^  Keats,  p.   120. 

^^ Life  in  Poetry:  Law  in  Taste,  pp.  21-23. 

'*  Age  of  Wordsworth,  p.  58. 


129 

ties,^^  and  All  Fool's  Day  "  mere  inanity  and  very  Cockney- 
ism."-®  In  April,  1822,  Blackzvood's  returned  to  the  attack 
but  with  more  than  usual  good  nature.  In  Nodes  Amhrosian^ 
of  that  month  Tickler  is  made  to  say: 

"  Elia  in  his  happiest  moods  delights  me ;  he  is  a  fine  soul ;  but  when  he 
is  dull,  his  dullness  sets  human  stupidity  at  defiance.  He  is  like  a  well- 
bred,  ill-trained  pointer.  He  has  a  fine  nose,  but  he  can't  or  won't  range. 
He  always  keeps  close  to  your  foot,  and  then  he  points  larks  or  tit-mice. 
You  see  him  snuffing  and  snoking  and  brandishing  his  tail  with  the  most 
impassioned  enthusiasm,  and  then  drawn  round  into  a  semi-circle  he  stands 
beautifully — dead  set.  You  expect  a  burst  of  partridges,  or  a  towering 
cock-pheasant,  when  lo,  and  behold,  away  flits  a  lark,  or  you  discover  a 
mouse's  nest,  or  there  is  absolutely  nothing  at  all.  Perhaps  a  shrew  has 
been  there  the  day  before.  Yet  if  Elia  were  mine,  I  would  not  part  with 
him,  for  all  his  faults." 

A  few  years  later  Lamb  became  one  of  Blackwood's  con- 
tributors. Two  attacks  on  Lamb  proceeded  from  the  Quar- 
terly. The  Confessions  of  a  Drunkard,  the  writer  says, 
"  affords  a  fearful  picture  of  the  consequences  of  intemperance 
which  we  have  reason  to  know  is  a  true  tale."^^  In  his 
Progess  of  Infidelity,  Southey  asserted  that  Elia's  volume 
of  essays  wanted  "  only  sounder  religious  feeling,  to  be  as  de- 
lightful as  it  is  original."-^  Lamb's  wrath  had  been  slowly 
gathering  under  the  strain  of  repeated  attacks  on  Hunt,  Hazlitt 
and  himself.  It  culminated  with  Southey 's  article.  In  the 
London  Magazine  of  October,  1823,  he  repudiated  at  con- 
siderable length  the  compliments  thrust  upon  him  at  the 
expense  of  his  friends,  and  denied  the  arraignment  of  drunken- 
ness and  heterodoxy.  Matters  were  then  smoothed  over  be- 
tween him  and  Southey  through  an  explanation  which  his 
unfailing  good  nature  could  not  resist. 

Haydon  was  nick-named  the  "  Raphael  of  the  Cockneys. "^^ 
Until  the  exhibition  of  Christ's  Entry  into  Jerusalem  in  Edin- 
burgh in  1820,  he  underwent  the  same  kind  of  persecution  as 
his  friends.  His  "  greasy  hair  "  was  about  as  notorious  as 
Hazlett's  "  pimpled  face."     But  the  picture  converted  Black- 

^ Blackwood's,  November,  1820.  "Quarterly,  April,  1822. 

^  Ibid.,  May,  1821.  '^  Ibid.,  January,  1823. 

^Blackwood's,  April,  181 9. 


130 

wood's  crew.  They  apologized  and  confessed  that  their  mis- 
apprehensions had  been  due  to  the  absurd  style  of  laudation  in 
The  Examiner.  Henceforward  they  acknowledged  him  to  be 
"  a  high  Tory  and  an  aristocrat,  and  a  sound  Christian."^" 

Bryan  Waller  Procter,  or  Barry  Cornwall,  was  satirized  in 
Blackwood's  for  his  so-called  effeminacy.  In  October,  1823, 
the  following  facetious  passage  occurs :  "  the  merry  thought  of 
a  chick — three  tea-spoons  fulls  of  peas,  the  eighth  part  of  a 
French  roll,  a  sprig  of  cauliflower,  and  an  almost  imperceptible 
dew  of  parsley  "  would  dine  the  author  of  The  Deluge.  The 
article  on  Shelley's  Posthumous  Poems  in  the  Edinburgh  of 
July,  1824,  was  attributed  to  Procter  by  Blackwood's  and 
assailed  in  a  most  disgusting  manner.  The  article  was  by 
HazHtt. 

John  Hamilton  Reynolds  was  a  friend  of  Keats,  one  of 
the  Young  Poets  reviewed  by  Hunt  in  The  Examiner,  and  a 
contributor  to  the  London  Magazine.  His  two  poems,  Eden 
of  the  Imagination  and  Fairies,  showed  Hunt's  influence.  In 
the  former  he  had  even  dared  to  praise  Hunt  in  the  notes. 

Cornelius  Webb  was  the  author  of  numerous  poems  which 
exhibit  in  a  marked  degree  the  Huntian  peculiarities  of  diction 
pointed  out  in  the  first  chapter.  He  is  moreover  responsible 
for  the  unfortunate  lines  so  often  quoted  in  derision  by  Black- 
wood's : 

"  Keats 
The  Muses'  son  of  promise !  and  what  feats 
He  yet  may  do." 

His  sonnets  in  the  Literary  Pocket  Book  were  thus  reviewed 
in  Blackwood's  of  December,  1821 :  "  Now,  Cornelius  Webbe 
is  a  Jaw-breaker.  Let  any  man  who  desires  to  have  his  ivory 
dislodged,  read  the  above  sonnet  to  March.  Or  shall  we  call 
Cornelius,  the  grinder?  After  reading  aloud  these  fourteen 
lines,  we  called  in  our  Odontist,  and  he  found  that  every  tooth 
in  our  head  was  loosened,  and  a  slight  fracture  in  the  jaw. 
'  My  dearest  Christopher',  said  the  Odontist,  in  his  wonted 
classical  spirit,  '  beware  the  Ides  of  March.'  So  saying,  he 
bounced  up  in  our  faces  and  disappeared." 

^  Life,  Letters  and  Table  Talk  of  Benjamin  Robert  Haydon,  p.  69. 


131 

Charles  Wells  was  a  friend  of  Hazlitt  and  of  Keats.  In 
true  Cockney  fashion  he  sent  the  latter  a  sonnet  and  some 
roses  and  thus  began  the  acquaintance.  Dilke  was  a  friend  of 
Keats,  a  radical,  and  an  independent  critic  in  the  manner 
of  Hunt.  Charles  Lloyd  was  Lamb's  friend,  one  of  the  con- 
tributors to  the  Literary  Pocket  Book  of  1820,  and  a  poet  of 
sentimental  and  descriptive  propensities.  P.  G.  Patmore  was 
"  Count  Tims,  the  Cockney. "^^  Although  he  was  a  corre- 
spondent of  Blackwood's,  his  son  has  remarked  that  he  was  not 
persona  grata,  but  was  employed  to  secure  news  from  London ; 
and  permitted  to  write  only  when  he  did  not  defend  his  friends 
too  much.2-  "John  Ketch"  (Abraham  Franklin)  is  men- 
tioned by  Lord  Byron  as  one  of  the  "  Cockney  Scribblers. "^^ 
Thomas  Hood,  as  brother-in-law  of  Reynolds,  as  assistant 
editor  of  the  London  Magazine,  and  as  an  imitator  in  a  small 
degree  in  his  early  work  of  Lamb  and  of  Hunt  may  be  enu- 
merated among  the  Cockneys,  although  he  is  not  usually 
included.  Laman  Blanchard  was  the  friend  of  Procter,  Lamb 
and  Hunt.  He  imitated  Procter's  Dramatic  Sketches  and 
Lamb's  Essays.  Talfourd  was  a  member  of  the  circle  and  the 
friend  and  biographer  of  Lamb.  He  defended  Edward 
Moxon  when  he  was  prosecuted  for  publishing  Queen  Mab. 
Peacock  was  the  friend  of  Shelley.  The  Oilier  brothers,  pub- 
lishers, introduced  Keats,  Shelley,  Hunt,  Lamb  and  Procter 
to  the  public.^* 

Although  Byron  was  frequently  at  war  with  Blackzvood's 
and  the  Quarterly,  and  although  he  was  closely  associated  with 
Shelley  and  Hunt,  he  was  never  stigmatized  as  a  member  of 
the  Cockney  School.  Yet  through  his  alliance  with  them  he 
came  in  for  some  opprobrium  that  he  would  otherwise  have 
escaped.  Blackzvood's  strove  through  ridicule  to  prevent  any 
growth  of  familiarity  with  Hunt  or  his  fraternity.  Its  attitude 
towards  the  dedication  to  Byron  of  the  Story  of  Rimini  has 
already  been  mentioned.    Hunt's  statement  already  quoted  on 

^^Blackzvood's,  May,  1823,  pp.  558-566. 

^^  Memoirs  and  Correspondence  of  Coventry  Patmore,  I,  p.  23. 

^Letters  and  Journals,  V,  p.  588. 

^*  St.  James  Magazine,  XXXV,  p.  387  ff. 


132 

p.  95  that  "  for  the  drama,  whatever  good  passages  such  a 
writer  will  always  put  forth,  we  hold  that  he  (Byron)  has  no 
more  qualification  than  we  have  "  was  a  choice  morsel  for  the 
Scotch  birds  of  prey,  enjoyed  to  the  fullest  extent  in  a  review 
of  Lyndsay's  Dramas  of  the  Ancient  World: 

"  Prigs  will  be  preaching — and  nothing  but  conceit  cometh  out  of  Cockaigne. 
What  an  emasculated  band  of  dramatists  have  deployed  upon  our  boards. 
A  pale-faced,  sallow  set,  like  the  misses  of  some  Cockney  boarding-school, 
taking  a  constitutional  walk,  to  get  rid  of  their  habits  of  eating  lime  out 
of  the  wall.  .  .  .  But  it  was  reserved  to  the  spirit  of  atheism  of  an  age, 
to  talk  of  a  Cockney  writing  a  tragedy.  When  the  mind  ceases  to  believe 
in  a  Providence,  it  can  believe  in  anything  else  ;  but  the  pious  soul  feels 
that  while  to  dream,  even  in  sleep,  that  a  Cockney  had  written  a  successful 
tragedy,  would  be  repugnant  to  reason ;  certainly  a  more  successful  tragedy 
could  not  be  imagined,  from  the  utter  destruction  of  Cockaigne  and  all 
its  inhabitants.  An  earthquake  or  a  shower  of  lava  would  be  too  com- 
plimentary to  the  Cockneys  ;  but  what  do  you  think  of  a  shower  of  soot 
from  a  multitude  of  foul  chimneys,  and  the  smell  of  gas  from  exploded  pipes. 
Something  might  be  made  of  the  idea.  .  .  .  The  truth  is,  that  these  mon- 
grel and  doggerel  drivellers  have  an  instinctive  abhorrence  of  a  true  poet ; 
and  they  all  ran  out  like  so  many  curs  baying  at  the  feet  of  the  Pegasus 
on  which  Byron  rode  .  .  .  and  the  eulogists  of  homely,  and  fireside,  and 
little  back-parlour  incest,  what  could  they  imagine  of  the  unseduceable 
spirit  of  the  spotless  Angiolina  ?  .  .  .  When  EUiston,  ignorant  of  what  one 
gentleman  owes  to  another,  or  driven  by  stupidity  to  forget  it,  brought 
the  Doge  on  the  stage,  how  crowed  the  Bantam  Cocks  of  Cockaigne  to 
see  it  damned !  .  .  .  But  Manfred  and  the  Doge  are  not  dead ;  while  all 
that  small  fry  have  disappeared  in  the  mud,  and  are  dried  up  like  so  many 
tadpoles  in  a  ditch,  under  the  summer  drowth.  '  Lord  Byron,'  quoth  Mr. 
Leigh  Hunt,  'has  about  as  much  dramatic  genius  as  ourselves!'  He  might 
as  well  have  said,  '  Lucretia  had  about  as  much  chastity  as  my  own  heroine 
in  Rimini ;  '  or,  '  Sir  Phillip  Sidney  was  about  as  much  of  the  gentleman 
as  myself  t  '  "  ^ 

Byron's  attitude  toward  the  Cockney  School  was  expressed 
in  a  letter  written  to  John  Murray  during  the  Bowles  con- 
troversy : 

"  With  the  rest  of  his  (Hunt's)  young  people  I  have  no  acquaintance, 
except  through  some  things  of -theirs  (which  have  been  sent  out  without 
my  desire),  and  I  confess  that  till  I  had  read  them  I  was  not  aware  of 
the  full  extent  of  human  absurdity.  Like  Garrick's  '  Ode  to  Shakespeare,' 
they  ■  defy  criticism.'     These  are  of  the  personages  who  decry  Pope.  .  .  . 

'^  Blackzvood's,   December,   1821. 


133 

Mr.  Hunt  redeems  himself  by  occasional  beauties  ;  but  the  rest  of  these 
poor  creatures  seem  so  far  gone  that  I  would  not  '  march  through  Coventry 
with  them,  that's  flat !  '  were  I  in  Mr.  Hunt's  place.  To  be  sure,  he  has 
'  led  his  ragamuffins  where  they  will  be  well  peppered ' ;  but  a  system- 
maker  must  receive  all  sorts  of  proselytes.  When  they  have  really  seen 
life — when  they  have  felt  it — when  they  have  travelled  beyond  the  far 
distant  boundaries  of  the  wilds  of  Middlesex — when  they  have  overpassed 
the  Alps  of  Highgate,  and  traced  to  its  sources  the.  Nile  of  the  New  River 
— then,  and  not  till  then,  can  it  properly  be  permitted  to  them  to  despise 
Pope.  .  .  .  The  grand  distinction  of  the  under  forms  of  the  new  school  of 
poets  is  their  vulgarity.  By  this  I  do  not  mean  that  they  are  coarse,  but 
'  shabby-genteel,'  as  it  is  termed.  A  man  may  be  coarse  and  yet  not  vulgar, 
and  the  reverse.  ...  It  is  in  their  finery  that  the  new  school  are  most 
vulgar,  and  they  may  be  known  by  this  at  once ;  as  what  we  called  at  Har- 
row "  A  Sunday  blood "  might  be  easily  distinguished  from  a  gentleman, 
although  his  clothes  might  be  the  better  cut,  and  his  boots  the  best  black- 
ened of  the  two : — probably  because  he  made  the  one  or  cleaned  the  other, 
with  his  own  hands.  ...  In  the  present  case,  I  speak  of  writing,  not  of 
persons.  Of  the  latter  I  know  nothing ;  of  the  former  I  judge  as  it  is 
found."  ^' 

Byron's  opinion  of  Keats  is  too  well  known  to  need  repetition. 
He  thought  there  was  hope  for  Barry  Cornwall  if  "he  don't 
get  spoiled  by  green  tea  and  the  praises  of  Pentonville  and 
Paradise  Row.  The  pity  of  these  men  is,  that  they  never  lived 
in  high  life  nor  in  soUttide:  there  is  no  medium  for  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  busy  or  the  still  world.  If  admitted  into  high  life 
for  a  season,  it  is  merely  as  spectators — they  form  no  part 
of  the  mechanism  thereof."^^ 

Blackzvood's  of  December,  1822,  in  a  review  of  The  Liberal, 
advised  Byron  to  "  cut  the  Cockney  " — "  by  far  the  most  un- 
accountable of  God's  works."  Hunt  is  denominated  "  the 
menial  of  a  lord."  When  Byron  notwithstanding  its  advice 
continued  his  "conjunction  with  these  deluded  drivellers  of 
Cockaigne  "  Blackwood's  grew  savage  towards  the  peer  him- 
self:  it  is  said  that  he  suffered  himself 

"  to  be  so  enervated  by  the  unworthy  Delilahs  which  have  enslaved  his 
imagination,  as  to  be  reduced  to  the  foul  office  of  displaying  blind  buf- 
fooneries before  the  Philistines  of  Cockaigne  ...  I  feel  a  moral  conviction 
that  his  lordship  must  have  taken  the  Examiner,  the  Liberal,  the  Rimini, 

^^  Letters  and  Journals,  V,  pp.  587-590.     March  25,  1821. 
^'  Ibid.,  V,  pp.  362-363.      September  12,  1821. 


134 

the  Round  Table,  as  his  model,  and  endeavored  to  write  himself  down  to 
the  level  of  the  capacities  and  the  swinish  tastes  of  those  with  whom  he 
has  the  misfortune,  originally,  I  believe,  from  charitable  motives,  to  asso- 
ciate. This  is  the  most  charitable  hypothesis  which  I  can  frame.  Indeed 
there  are  some  verses  which  have  all  the  appearance  of  having  been  inter- 
polated by  the  King  of  the  Cockneys.'"* 

When  Byron  and  Hunt  had  separated,  Blackzvood's  attempted 
to  reinstate  Byron  in  his  former  position  by  declaring  that 
he  had  been  disgusted  beyond  endurance  on  Hunt's  arrival 
in  Italy  and  that  he  had  cut  him  very  soon  in  a  "paroxysm 
of  loathing."^^ 

The  declaration  of  war  between  the  Cockneys  and  the  Tory 
press  was  made  with  a  review  of  the  Story  of  Rimini  in  the 
Quarterly  of  January,  1816.  From  this  time  on  Hunt  was 
the  choice  prey  of  the  two  magazines,  and  others  were  attacked 
principally  on  account  of  him,  or  reached  through  him.  Hunt's 
writings  were  termed  "  eruptions  of  a  disease "  with  which 
he  insists  upon  inoculating  mankind ; "  his  language  "  an  un- 
grammatical,  unauthorized,  chaotic  jargon."  Blackwood's  of 
October,  1817,  contained  the  first  of  the  long  series  of  abusive 
articles  which  appeared  in  its  columns.  Hazlitt  in  the  Edin- 
burgh Reviezi!  in  June  of  the  preceding  year  had  acclaimed 
the  Story  of  Rimini  to  be  "  a  reminder  of  the  pure  and  glorious 
style  that  prevailed  among  us  before  French  modes  and  French 
methods  of  criticism."  In  it  he  had  discovered  a  resemblance 
to  Chaucer,  to  the  voluptuous  pathos  of  Boccaccio  and  to  the 
laughing  graces  of  Ariosto.  To  offset  such  statements  Black- 
wood's dubbed  the  new  school  the  "  Cockney  School "  and 
made  Hunt  its  chief  doctor  and  professor.  (Later,  in  1823, 
Blackzvood's  proudly  claimed  the  honor  of  christening  and 
said  that  the  Quarterly  used  the  epithet  only  when  it  had 
become  a  part  of  English  criticism.)  It  declared  the  dedication 
to  Byron  an  insult  and  the  poem  the  product  of  affectation  and 
gaudiness  and  continued: 

"  The  beaux  are  attorney's  apprentices,  with  chapeau  bras  and  Limerick 
gloves^ — fiddlers,  harp  teachers,  and  clerks  of  genius :  the  belles  are  faded, 

^*  Letters  of  Timothy  Tickler,  Esq.,  July,  1823. 
"*  September,  1824, 


135 

fan-twinkling  spinsters,  prurient  vulgar  misses  from  school,  and  enormous 
citizen's  wives.  The  company  are  entertained  with  luke-warm  negus,  and 
the  sounds  of  a  paltry  piano  forte.  .  .  .  His  poetry  resembles  that  of  a  man 
who  has  kept  company  with  kept-mistresses.  His  muse  talks  indelicately 
like  the  tea-sipping  milliner's  girl.  Some  excuse  for  her  there  might  have 
been,  had  she  been  hurried  away  by  imagination  or  passion ;  but  with  her, 
indecency  seems  a  disease,  she  appears  to  speak  unclean  things  from  per- 
fect inanition."  Hunt  "  would  fain  be  always  tripping  and  waltzing,  and 
he  is  very  sorry  that  he  cannot  be  allowed  to  walk  about  in  the  morning 
with  yellow  breeches  and  flesh-colored  silk  stockings.  He  sticks  an  arti- 
ficial rosebud  in  his  button  hole  in  the  midst  of  winter.  He  wears  no 
neckcloth,  and  cuts  his  hair  in  imitation  of  the  prints  of  Petrarch." 

Nature  in  the  eyes  of  a  Cockney  was  said  to  consist  only  of 
"green  fields,  jaunty  streams,  and  o'er-arching  leafiness;"  no 
mountains  were  higher  than  Highgate-hill  nor  streams  more 
pastoral  than  the  Serpentine  River.*"  Blackzuood's  was  near 
the  truth  in  its  criticism  of  Hunt's  conception  of  nature.  While 
his  appreciation  was  very  genuine,  it  was  restricted  to  rural 
or  suburban  scenes,  "of  the  town,  towny."*^  The  scale  was 
that  of  the  window  garden  or  a  flower  pot.  Who  but  he  could 
rhapsodize  over  a  cut  flower  or  a  bit  of  green ;  or  could  speak 
in  spring  "of  being  gay  and  vernal  and  daff odilean ? "*-  Yet 
he  produced  some  delightful  rural  poetry.  Take  this  for  in- 
stance : 

"  You  know  the  rural  feeling,  and  the  charm 
That  stillness  has  for  a  world-fretted  ear, 
'Tis  now  deep  whispering  all  about  me  here, 
With  thousand  tiny  bushings,  like  a  swarm 
Of  atom  bees,  or  fairies  in  alarm 
Or  noise  of  numerous  bliss  from  distant  spheres."** 

The  general  characteristics  of  the  school,  briefly  summar- 
ized, were  said  to  be  ignorance  and  vulgarity,  an  entire  absence 
of  religion,  a  vague  and  sour  Jacobinism  for  patriotism,  admi- 
ration of  Chaucer  and  Spenser  when  they  resemble  Hunt,  and 
extreme  moral  depravity  and  obscenity.  November,  1817, 
of  Blackzvood's  contained  the  notorious  accusation  against  the 

*"  Hunt,  Correspondence,  I,  p.  136. 

*' Daniel    Maclise,   A    Gallery   of  Illustrious   Literary    Characters    (1830- 
1838).     London,  n.  d.,  p.  132. 
*- William  Dorling,  Memoirs  of  Dora  Greenwell,  London,  1885,  p.  75. 
"  Epistle  to  Barnes. 


136 

Story  of  Rimini  of  immorality  of  purpose. ■**  The  poem  was 
called  "  the  genteel  comedy  of  incest."  Francesca's  sin  was 
declared  voluntary  and  her  sufferings  sentimental.  The 
changes  from  the  historical  version,  an  espousal  by  proxy 
instead  of  betrothal,  the  omission  of  deformity,  the  substitu- 
tion of  the  duel  for  murder,  and  the  happy  opening,  were  pro- 
nounced wilful  perversions  for  the  furtherance  of  corruption. 
Ford's  treatment  of  the  same  theme  much  more  elevated. 
Hunt's  defense  was  that  the  catastrophe  was  Francesca's  suf- 
ficient punishment.*^  In  May,  1818,  the  same  charge  was  re- 
peated :  "  No  woman  who  has  not  either  lost  her  chastity,  or 
is  desirous  of  losing  it,  ever  read  the  '  Story  of  Rimini '  with- 
out the  flushings  of  shame  and  of  self-reproach." 

The  Examiner  of  November  2  and  16,  1817,  quoted  extracts 
from  the  first  of  these  articles  and  called  upon  the  author  to 
avow  himself;  otherwise  to  an  "utter  disregard  of  Truth  and 
Decency,  he  adds  the  height  of  Meanness  and  Cowardice."*® 
As  might  have  been  expected,  this  demand  brought  forth  noth- 
ing more  than  a  disavowal  from  the  London  publishers  who 
handled  Blackzvood's  of  all  responsibility  in  the  matter.  June 
14,  1818,  The  Examiner  assailed  the  editor  of  the  Quarterly 
as  a  government  critic  who  disguised  a  political  quarrel  in 
literary  garb,  as  a  sycophant  to  power  and  wealth : 

**  This  accusation  has  been  made  still  more  recently  by  Mr.  Palgrave, 
who  speaks  of  the  "  slipshod  morality  of  Rimini  and  Hero."  Poetical 
Works  of  John  Keats,  p.  262. 

*^  In  1844,  however,  he  refashioned  the  whole  poem,  now  representing 
Giovanni  as  deformed  and  as  the  murderer  of  his  wife  and  brother, 
whereas  in  the  version  of  1816  Paolo  had  been  slain  in  a  duel  and 
Francesca  had  died  of  grief.  In  1855,  he  made  a  second  change  and  went 
back  to  the  1816  version.  The  duel  he  preserved  in  the  fragment,  Corso 
and  Emilia.  Hunt's  translation  of  Dante's  episode  appeared  in  Stories  of 
Verse,  1855.  In  1857  he  made  a  third  change  and  restored  the  version 
of  1844. 

*"  The  editor  of  Blackwood's  in  a  letter  dated  April  20,  1818,  offered 
space  to  P.  G.  Patmore  for  a  favourable  critique  of  Hunt's  poetry,  re- 
serving to  himself  the  privilege  of  answering  such  an  article.  He  stated 
further  that  if  Hunt  had  employed  less  violent  language  towards  the  re- 
viewer of  Rimini  he  might  have  been  given  a  friendly  explanation. 
Memoirs  and  Correspondence  of  Coventry  Patmore,  II,  p.  438. 


137 

"  Grown  old  in  the  service  of  corruption,  he  drivels  on  to  the  last  with 
prostituted  impotence,  and  shameless  effrontery ;  salves  a  meagre  reputa- 
tion for  wit,  by  venting  the  driblets  of  his  spleen  and  impertinence  on 
others ;  answers  their  arguments  by  confuting  himself ;  mistakes  habitual 
obtuseness  of  intellect  for  a  particular  acuteness,  not  to  be  imposed  upon 
by  shallow  pretensions ;  unprincipled  rancor  for  zealous  loyalty  ;  and  the 
irritable,  discontented,  vindictive,  and  peevish  effusions  of  bodily  pain  and 
mental  infirmity,  for  proofs  of  refinement  of  taste  and  strength  of  under- 
standing." 

This  condescension  to  a  use  of  his  enemies'  weapons  only- 
weakened  Hunt's  position.  Yet  in  the  light  of  the  secrecy 
maintained  at  the  time  and  the  mystery  surrounding  the  matter 
ever  since,  it  is  interesting  to  read  Blackzuood's  contorted  reply 
to  Hunt's  demand  for  an  open  fight,  written  as  late  as  Janu- 
ary, 1826: 

"  Nor  let  it  be  said  that,  either  on  this  or  any  other  occasion,  the  moral 
Satyrists  (sic)  in  this  magazine  ever  wished  to  remain  unknown.  How,  in- 
deed, could  they  wish  for  what  they  well  knew  was  impossible?  All  the 
world  has  all  along  known  the  names  of  the  gentlemen  who  have  uttered 
our  winged  words.  Nor  did  it  ever,  for  one  single  moment,  enter  into  the 
head  of  any  one  of  them  to  wish — not  to  scorn  concealment.  To  gentle- 
men, too,  they  at  all  times  acted  like  gentlemen  ;  but  was  it  ever  dreamt  by 
the  wildest  that  they  were  to  consider  as  such  the  scum  of  the  earth?  '  If  I 
but  knew  who  was  my  slanderer,'  was  at  one  time  the  ludicrous  skraigh  of 
the  convicted  Cockney.  Why  did  he  not  ask?  and  what  would  he  have 
got  by  asking?  Shame  and  confusion  of  face — unanswerable  argument  and 
cruel  chastisement.  For  before  one  word  would  have  been  deigned  to  the 
sinner,  he  must  have  eaten — and  the  bitter  roll  is  yet  ready  for  him — all 
the  lies  he  had  told  for  the  last  twenty  years,  and  must  either  have  choked 
or  been  kicked." 

In  January,  1818,  Blackwood's  issued  a  manifesto  of  their 
future  campaign.  The  Keatses,  Shelleys,  and  Webbes,  were 
to  be  taken  in  turn.  The  charges  of  profligacy  and  obscenity 
against  Hunt's  poem  were  repeated,  but  it  was  emphatically 
stated  that  there  was  no  implication  made  in  reference  to  his 
private  character — an  ominous  statement  that  any  one  with 
any  knowledge  of  Blackzvood's  usual  methods  could  only  con- 
strue into  a  warning  that  such  an  implication  would  speedily 
follow.  The  article  was  signed  "  Z,"  a  shadowy  personage 
who  sorrowfully  called  himself  the  "  present  object"  of  Hunt's 
resentment  and  dislike.     He  seems  to  have  expected  gratitude 


138 

and  affection  in  return  for  articles  that  would  compare  favor- 
ably with  the  most  scurrilous  billingsgate  of  any  of  the  Hu- 
manistic controversies.  In  May,  1818,  with  due  ceremony, 
Hunt  was  proclaimed  *'  King  of  the  Cockneys  "  and  editor  of 
the  Cockney  Court-gazette.  His  kingdom  was  the  "  Land  of 
Cockaigne,"  a  borrowing,  most  probably,  from  the  thirteenth 
century  satire  by  that  name.  Keats's  sonnet  containing  the 
line  "  He  of  the  rose,  the  violet,  the  spring  "  became  the  official 
Cockney  poem — by  an  "  amiable  but  infatuated  bardling." 
John  Hunt  was  made  Prince  John.  With  the  lapse  of  time 
Hunt's  crimes  seem  to  have  multiplied.  He  is  called  a  lunatic, 
a  libeller,  an  abettor  of  murder  and  of  assassination,  a  coward, 
an  incendiary,  a  Jacobin,  a  plebeian  and  a  foe  to  virtue.  He 
is  instructed,  if  sickened  with  the  sins  and  follies  of  mankind, 
to  withdraw 

"to  the  holy  contemplation  of  your  own  divine  perfections,  and  there  'perk 
up  with  timid  mouth '  '  and  lamping  eyes  '  (as  you  have  it)  upon  what  to 
you  is  dearer  and  more  glorious  than  all  created  things  besides,  till  you 
become  absorbed  in  your  own  identity — motionless,  mighty,  and  magnifi- 
cent, in  the  pure  calm  of  Cockneyism  .  .  .  instead  of  rousing  yourself 
from  your  lair,  like  some  noble  beast  when  attacked  by  the  hunter,  you 
roll  yourself  round  like  a  sick  hedgehog,  that  has  crawled  out  into  the 
'  crisp  '  gravel  walk  round  your  box  at  Hampstead,  and  oppose  only  the 
feeble  pricks  of  your  hunch'd-up  back  to  the  kicks  of  any  one  who  wishes 
less  to  hurt  you,  than  to  drive  you  into  your  den." 

The  Quarterly  of  the  same  month  contained  the  notorious  re- 
view of  Foliage.  Southey,  in  a  counterfeited  Cockney  style, 
contorts  Hunt's  devotion  to  his  leafy  luxuries,  his  flowerets, 
wine,  music  and  other  social  joys  into  Epicureanism*'  and  like 
unsound  principles.  He  ever  goes  so  far  as  to  accuse  him  of 
incest  and  adultery  in  his  private  life.  There  are  disguised  but 
unmistakable  references  to  Keats  and  to  Shelley;  the  latter  is 
credited  with  evil  doings  that  fall  little  short  of  machinations 
with  the  devil.  The  volume  of  poems,  which  was  the  ostensible 
pretext  for  this  parade  of  foul  slander,  not  a  word  of  which  was 
true,  has,  Southey  says,  richness  of  language  and  picturesque- 

*'  This  charge  was  renewed  in  a  review  of  Hunt's  Autobiography  in  1850 
in  the  Eclectic  Review,  XCII,  p.  416. 


139 

ness  of  imagery.*®  The  July  number  of  Blackivood's  went  a 
step  beyond  Southey  and  identified  the  characters  of  the  Story 
of  Rimini  with  Hunt  and  his  sister-in-law,  Elizabeth  Kent. 
After  ostentatiously  giving  currency  to  the  scandal,  "  Z  "  then 
proceeds  to  deny  the  rumor — which  had  no  existence  save  in 
the  minds  of  Hunt's  vilifiers — in  order  to  preserve  immunity 
from  libel.  At  the  time  that  Lamb  replied  to  Southey  in  1823 
he  took  up  these  charges  made  against  Hunt  in  1818.    He  said : 

"  I  was  admitted  to  his  household  for  several  years,  and  do  most  solemnly 
aver  that  I  believe  him  to  be  in  his  domestic  relations  as  correct  as  any 
man.  He  chose  an  ill-judged  subject  for  a  poem.  ...  In  spite  of  '  Rimini,' 
I  must  look  upon  its  author  as  a  man  of  taste  and  a  poet.  He  is  better 
than  so ;  he  is  one  of  the  most  cordial-minded  men  that  I  ever  knew,  and 
matchless  as  a  fireside  companion.  I  do  not  mean  to  affront  or  wound 
your  feelings  when  I  say  that  in  his  more  genial  moods,  he  has  often  re- 
minded me  of  you."  *' 

A  facetious  bit  of  prose  On  Sonnet  Writing  and  a  Sonnet  on 
Myself  in  Blackwood's  of  April,  1819,  parodied  excellently  the 
Cockney  conceit  and  mannerisms.  The  September  number 
contrasted  Henry  Hunt,  the  representative  of  the  Cockney 
School  of  Politics,  with  Leigh  Hunt,  of  the  Cockney  School  of 
Poetry;  resenting  loudly  the  claim  of  the  two  to  prominence 
for  "  even  Douglasses  never  had  more  than  one  Bell-the-cat 
at  a  time."  While  Henry  Hunt  "  the  brawny  white  feather  of 
Cockspur-street "  addresses  street  mobs,  the  other  Hunt,  "  the 

**  Byron  greatly  resented  Southey's  article :  "  I  am  glad  Mr.  Southey 
owns  that  article  on  Foliage  which  excited  my  choler  so  much.  But  who 
else  could  have  been  the  author?  Who  but  Southey  would  have  had  the 
baseness,  under  the  pretext  of  reviewing  the  work  of  one  man,  insidiously 
to  make  it  nest  work  for  hatching  malicious  calumnies  against  others? 
...  I  say  nothing  of  the  critique  itself  on  Foliage;  with  the  exception 
of  a  few  sonnets,  it  was  imworthy  of  Hunt.  But  what  was  the  object 
of  that  article  ?  I  repeat,  to  villify  and  scatter  his  dark  and  devilish 
insinuation  against  me  and  others.  (Medwin,  Conversations  of  Lord  Byron, 
p.  102.)  Again  Byron  wrote  of  Southey  in  1820:  "Hence  his  quarterly 
overflowings,  political  and  literary,  in  what  he  has  termed  himself  '  the 
ungentle  craft,'  and  his  special  wrath  against  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt,  not  with- 
standing that  Hunt  has  done  more  for  Wordsworth's  reputation  as  a 
poet  (such  as  it  is),  than  all  the  Lakers  could  in  their  interchange  of 
praises  for  the  last  twenty-five  years."      {Letters  and  Journals,  V,  p.  84.) 

*' London  Magazine,  October,  1823. 


140 

lank  and  sallow  hypochondriac  of  the  '  leafy  rise '  and  '  farmy 
fields '  of  Hampstead,"  "  the  whining  milk-sop  sonneteer  of 
the  Examiner  "  is  said  to  speak  to  a  "  sorely  depressed  remnant 
of  '  single  gentlemen '  in  lodgings,  and  single  ladies  we  know 
not  where — a  generation  affected  with  headaches,  tea-drinking 
and  all  the  nostalgia  of  the  nerves."  It  is  hardly  necessary  to 
add  that  there  was  no  connection  whatsoever  between  the  two 
men. 

Blackivood's  of  October,  1819,  announced  Foliage  to  be  a 
posthumous  publication  of  Hunt's,  presented  to  the  public  by 
his  three  friends,  Keats,  Haydon  and  Novello.  An  affecting 
picture  is  drawn  of  the  now-departed  Hunt  in  his  once  familiar 
costume  of  dressing-gown,  yellow  breeches  and  red  slippers, 
sipping  tea,  playing  whist  and  writing  sonnets.  His  statement 
in  the  preface  that  a  "  love  of  sociability,  of  the  country,  and 
the  fine  imagination  of  the  Greeks  "  had  prompted  the  poems 
is  greatly  ridiculed.  The  first  is  said  to  have  caused  his  death 
by  an  over-indulgence  in  tea-drinking;  his  feeling  for  nature 
is  said  to  be  limited  to  the  lawns,  stiles  and  hedges  of  Hamp- 
stead and  his  knowledge  of  the  imagination  of  the  Greeks  to 
quotations.  The  Sonnet  On  Receiving  a  Crown  of  Ivy  from 
Keats  came  in  for  especial  derision — "  a  blister  clapped  on  his 
head  "  would  have  been  considered  more  appropriate. 

Hunt's  Literary  Pocket  Books  for  1819  and  1820  were  re- 
viewed in  Blackwood's  in  December,  1819,  in  a  remarkably 
kind  article.  They  are  recommended  as  worth  three  times  the 
price.  The  reviewer,  who  was  no  other  than  "  Christopher 
North,"  stated  that  he  had  purchased  six  copies.  Blackzvood's 
of  September,  1820,  reviewed  The  Indicator;  of  December, 
1821,  the  1822  Literary  Pocket  Book;  the  last  contained  coarse 
and  unkind  allusions  to  Hunt's  health.  It  declared  the  pro- 
duction of  sonnets  in  London  and  its  suburbs  about  equal  to 
the  number  of  births  and  deaths.  In  reply,  The  Examiner  of 
December  16,  1821,  in  an  article  entitled  Modern  Criticism, 
italicised  extracts  from  Blackwood's  to  bring  out  peculiarities 
of  grammar  and  diction.  Blackwood's  of  January,  1822,  con- 
tained a  sonnet  which  it  was  pretended  was  Hunt's  New 
Year's  greeting,  but  which  was  instead  a  clever  parody  on  his 
sonnet-style. 


141 

The  issue  of  the  next  month  announced  the  triumvirate 
of  The  Liberal  and,  through  Byron's  "  noble  generosity," 
Hunt's  departure  with  his  wife  and  "Httle  Johnnys"  upon  a 
"  perilous  voyage  on  the  un-cockney  ocean.  .  .  .  He  and  his 
companions  will  now,  like  his  own  Nereids, 

turn 
And  toss  upon  the  ocean's  lifting  billows, 
Making  them  banks  and  pillows, 
Upon  whose  springiness  they  lean  and  ride ; 
Some  with  an  inward  back;  some  upward-eyed. 
Feeling   the    sky ;    and    some    with   sidelong   hips, 
O'er  which  the  surface  of  the  water  slips." 

The  first  number  of  the  Nodes  Ambrosiance  appeared  in  March. 
The  following  passage  refers  to  the  launching  of  The  Liberal 
in  a  dialogue  between  the  Editor  and  O'Doherty : 

O.  Hand  me  the  lemons.  This  holy  alliance  of  Pisa  will  be  a  queer 
affair.  The  Examiner  has  let  down  its  price  from  a  tenpenny  to  a  seven- 
penny.  They  say  the  Editor  here  is  to  be  one  of  that  faction,  for  they  must 
publish  in  London,  of  course. 

Ed.  Of  course,  but  I  doubt  if  they  will  be  able  to  sell  many.  Byron 
is  a  prince,  but  these  dabbling  dogglerers  destroy  every  dish  they  dip   in. 

O.     Apt  alliteration's  artful  aid. 

Ed.  Imagine  Shelly  [sic],  with  his  spavin,  and  Hunt,  with  his  staingalt, 
going  in  harness  with  such  a  caperer  as  Byron,  three-a-breast.  He'll  knock 
the  wind  out  of  them  both  the  first  canter. 

O.  'Tis  pity  Keats  is  dead. — I  suppose  you  could  not  venture  to  publish 
a  sonnet  in  which  he  is  mentioned  now  ?  The  Quarterly  (who  killed  him, 
as  Shelly  says)  would  blame  you. 

Ed.  Let's  hear  it.     Is  it  your  own  ? 

O.  No  ;  'twas  written  many  months  ago  by  a  certain  great  Italian  genius, 
who  cuts  a  figure  about  the  London  routs — one  Fudgiolo. 

Ed.     Try  to  recollect  it.      (Here  follows  the  sonnet.) 

Blackwood's  of  December,  1822,  had  passages  on  the  Cockney 
School  in  Nodes  Ambrosiance.  Number  VH.  of  the  series  of 
articles  on  its  members  reviewed  Hunt's  Florentine  Lovers,  or, 
in  their  phrasing,  his  Art  of  Love,  the  story  of  which  is  wil- 
fully misrepresented.  Hunt  is  declared  "  the  most  irresistible 
knight-errant  errotic  extant  .  .  .  the  most  contemptible  little 
capon  of  the  bantam  breed  that  ever  vainly  dropped  a  wing,  or 
sidled  up  to  a  partlet.  He  can  no  more  crow  than  a  hen. 
Byron  makes  love  like  Sir  Peter,  Moore  like  a  tom-tit  and 


142 

Hunt  like  a  bantam."  The  writer  then  charges  Hunt  with 
irreligion,  indecency,  sensuaHty  and  Hcentiousness.  He  is 
called  "  A  Fool "  and  an  "  exquisite  idiot."  Such  a  burst  of 
rage  on  the  part  of  the  anti-Cockneys,  after  their  wrath  had 
begun  to  cool  as  seen  in  the  review  of  the  Literary  Pocket 
Book,  was  doubtless  due  to  Hunt's  association  in  The  Liberal 
with  Byron :  "  What  can  Byron  mean  by  patronizing  a  Cock- 
ney? ...  by  far  the  most  unaccountable  of  God's  works  .  .  . 
a  scavenger  raking  in  the  filth  of  the  common  sewers  and 
stews,  for  a  few  gold  pieces  thrown  down  by  a  nobleman.  .  .  . 
But  that  Satan  should  stoop  to  associate  with  an  incubus,  shows 
that  there  is  degeneracy  in  hell."  The  tirade  closes  with  a 
poem  of  six  stanzas  of  which  this  is  a  fair  sample : 

"  The  kind  Cockney  Monarch,  he  bids  us  farewell 
Taking  his  place  in  the  Leghorn-bound  smack — 
In  the  smack,  in  the  smack — Ah!  will  he  ne'er  come  back?" 

At  the  appearance  of  the  last  number  of  The  Liberal,  Black- 
zvood's  rejoiced  thus : 

"  Their  hum,  to  be  sure,  is  awfully  subdued.  They  remind  me  of  a  mutch- 
kin  of  wasps  in  a  bottle,  all  sticking  to  each  other — heads  and  tails — rumps 
glued  with  treacle  and  vinegar,  wax  and  pus — helpless,  hopeless,  stingless, 
wingless,  springless — utterly  abandoned  of  air — choked  and  choking — mu- 
tually entangling  and  entangled — and  mutually  disgusting  and  disgusted — 
the  last  blistering  ferment  of  incarnate  filth  working  itself  into  one  mass 
of  oblivion  in  one  bruised  and  battered  sprawl  of  swipes  and  venom."  "" 

Blackwood's  of  October,  1823,  declared  Hazlitt  to  be  the 
most  loathsome  and  Hunt  the  most  ludicrous  of  the  group. 
Before  the  close  of  the  year  Hunt  threatened  the  magazine 
with  a  suit  for  libel.  This  threat  did  not  prevent  in  January 
a  notice  of  Hunt's  Ultra^Crepidarius,  a  satire  on  Gifford  much 
in  the  vein  and  style  of  the  Feast  of  the  Poets.  Mercury  and 
Venus  come  to  earth  in  search  of  the  former's  lost  shoe.  On 
their  arrival  they  discover  that  it  has  been  converted  by  com- 
mand of  the  gods  into  a  man  named  Gifford.  The  satire  is 
facetiously  attributed  by  Blackwood's  to  Master  Hunt,  aged 
ten;  a  "small,  smart,  smattering  satirist  of  an  air-haparent 

"  September,  1823. 


143 

.  .  .  Cockney  chick."     The  parent  is  reproached  for  putting  a 
child  in  such  a  position. 

"  Had  Leigh  Hunt,  the  papa,  boldly  advanced  on  any  great  emergency, 
at  the  peril  of  his  life  and  crown,  to  snatch  the  legitimate  issue  of  his  own 
loins  from  the  shrivelled  hands  of  some  blear-eyed  old  beldam,  into  whose 
small  cabbage-garden  Maximilian  had  headed  a  forlorn  hope,  good  and  well, 
and  beautiful ;  but  not  so,  when  a  stalwart  and  cankered  carl  like  Mr. 
Gifford,  with  his  quarter-staff,  belabours  the  shoulders  of  his  Majesty,  and 
sire  shoves  son  between  himself  and  the  Pounder  .  .  .  such  pusillanimity 
involves  forfeiture  of  the  Crown,  and  from  this  hour  we  declare  Leigh 
dethroned,  and  the  boy-bard  of  Ultra-Crepidarius  King  of  Cockaigne." 

Wearying  of  this  make-beheve,  the  reviewer  discards  such 
a  possibiHty  of  authorship  and  considers  Hunt's  grandfather, 
a  legendary  personage  whose  age  is  put  at  ninety-six  and 
who  is  given  the  name  of  Zachariah  Hunt :  "  What  a  gross, 
vulgar,  leering  old  dog  it  is!  Was  ever  the  couch  of  the 
celestials  so  profaned  before !  One  thinks  of  some  aged  cur, 
with  mangy  back,  glazed  eye-balls  dropping  rheum,  and  with 
most  disconsolate  muzzard  muzzling  among  the  fleas  of  his 
abominable  loins,  by  some  accident  lying  upon  the  bed  where 
Love  and  Beauty  are  embracing  and  embraced."  As  a  final 
potentiality  the  reviewer  deliberates  whether  Hunt  by  any  pos- 
sibility could  have  been  the  author  and  closes  with  this  perora- 
tion :  "  There  he  goes  soaking,  and  swaling,  and  straddling  up 
the  sky,  like  Daniel  O'Rouke  on  goose  back!  .  .  .  Toes  in  if 
you  please.  The  goose  is  galloping — why  don't  you  stand  in 
the  stirrups?  .  .  .  Alas  Pegasus  smells  his  native  marshes; 
instead  of  making  for  Olympus,  he  is  off  in  a  wallop  to  the 
fens  of  Lincolnshire !  Bellerophon  has  lost  his  seat — now  he 
clings  desperately  by  the  tail — a  single  feather  holds  him  from 
eternity." 

Article  VHI  of  the  regular  series,  reviewing  Hunt's  Bacchus 
in  Tuscany,  appeared  in  Blackwood's  of  August,  1825.  His 
allegiance  to  Apollo  in  Cockaigne  is  declared  to  have  been 
changed  to  Bacchus  in  Tuscany,  and  his  usual  beverage  of 
weak  tea  to  a  diet  of  wine  on  which  he  swills  like  a  hippopota- 
mus. He  is  depicted  as  Jupiter  Tonans  and  his  manner  to 
Hebe  is  compared  with  a  "  natty  Bagman  to  the  barmaid  of 
the  Hen  and  Chickens."     The  same  number  noticed  Sotheby's 


144 

translation  of  Homer.  The  opportunity  was  not  lost  to  refer 
unfavorably  to  Hunt's  translations  of  the  same  in  Foliage. 

The  Rebellion  of  the  Beasts;  or  The  Ass  is  Dead!  Long  Live 
the  Ass!!!  By  aLate  Fellozv  of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge, 
with  the  motto  "  A  man  hath  pre-eminence  above  a  beast,"  was 
published  anonymously  by  J.  &  H.  L.  Hunt  in  London  in  1825. 
There  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  it  was  by  Hunt,  although 
he  does  not  mention  it  elsewhere.  It  is  an  exceedingly  clever 
satire  on  monarchy  and  far  surpasses  anything  else  of  the  kind 
that  he  ever  did.  Had  the  Tories  of  Edinburgh  suspected  the 
author  it  would  probably  have  made  them  apoplectic  with  rage." 

With  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries  the  rage 
of  the  two  periodicals  reached  a  grand  climax  and  seemingly 
exhausted  itself.  The  Quarterly  in  March  of  the  same  year 
in  which  it  appeared  said :  "  The  last  wiggle  of  expiring  imbe- 
cility appears  in  these  days  to  be  a  volume  of  personal  Remi- 
niscences." It  characterized  the  book  as  a  melancholy  product 
of  coxcombry  and  cockneyism:  as  "dirty  gabble  about  men's 
wives  and  men's  mistresses — and  men's  lackeys,  and  even  the 
mistresses  of  the  lackeys : "  as  "  the  miserable  book  of  a  mis- 
erable man ;  the  little  airy  fopperies  of  its  manner  are  like  the 
fantastic  trip  and  convulsive  simpers  of  some  poor  worn- 
out  wanton,  struggling  between  famine  and  remorse,  leering 
through  her  tears."  Blackwood's  of  the  same  month  pictured 
Hunt  riding  in  the  tourney  lists  of  Cockaigne  to  the  tune  of 
Cock-a-doodle-doo.  It  accused  him,  besides  those  misde- 
meanors many  times  previously  exploited,  of  clumsy  casuistry, 
of  falsehood  regarding  his  transaction  with  Colburn,  of  ill- 
breeding  in  dragging  his  wife  into  such  a  book.  The  following 
is  the  culmination  of  the  author's  anger: 

"  Mr.  Hunt,  who  to  the  prating  pertness  of  the  parrot,  the  chattering  im- 
pudence of  the  magpie — to  say  nothing  of  the  mowling  malice  of  the 
monkey — adds  the  hissiness  of  the  bill-pouting  gander,  and  the  gobble- 
bluster  of  the  bubbly-jock — to  say  nothing  of  the  forward  valour  of  the 
brock  or  badger — threatens  death  and  destruction  to  all  writers  of  prose 
or  verse,  who  shall  dare  to  say  white  is  the  black  of  his  eye,  or  that  his 
book  is  not  like  a  vase  lighted  up  from  within  with  the  torch  of  truth  .  .  . 
Frezeland  Bantam  is  the  vainest  bird  that  attempts  to  crow  ;  and  by  and 
by  our  feverish   friend  comes   out   into   the  light,   and  begins   to   trim  his 


145 

plumage !  His  toilet  over  he  basks  on  the  ditch  side,  and  has  not  the 
smallest  doubt  in  the  world  that  he  is  a  Bird  of  Paradise." 

The  Literary  Gazette  joined  in  the  hue-and-cry  against  "  the 
pert  vulgarity  and  miserable  low-mindedness  of  Cockney-land," 
against  "  the  disagreeable,  envious,  bickering,  hating,  slandering, 
contemptible,  drivelling  and  be-devilling  wretches. "^^  Black- 
wood's of  February,  1830,  in  a  review  of  Moore's  Life,  Letters 
and  Journals  of  Lord  Byron,  satirizes  the  conversational  habits 
of  the  Cockneys  "  who  all  keep  chattering  during  meals  and 
after  them,  like  so  many  monkeys,  emulous  and  envious  of  each 
other's  eloquence,  and  pulling  out  with  their  paws  fetid  obser- 
vations from  their  cheek-pouches,  which  are  nuts  to  them, 
though  instead  of  kernel,  nothing  but  snuff." 

Not  only  did  the  articles  in  Blackwood's  cease  after  this  last, 
but  in  1834  a  full  and  complete  apology  was  tendered  Hunt  by 
Christopher  North : 

"  And  Shelley  truly  loved  Leigh  Hunt.  Their  friendship  was  honorable 
to  both,  for  it  was  as  disinterested  as  sincere ;  and  I  hope  Gurney  will  let 
a  certain  person  in  the  City  understand  that  I  treat  his  offer  of  a  reviewal 
of  Mr.  Hunt's  London  Journal  with  disdain.  If  he  has  anything  to  say 
against  us  or  that  gentleman,  either  conjunctly  or  severally,  let  him  out 
with  it  in  some  other  channel ;  and  I  promise  him  a  touch  and  taste  of 
the  crutch.  He  talks  to  me  of  Maga's  desertion  of  principle ;  but  if  he 
were  a  Christian — nay,  a  man — his  heart  and  his  head  would  tell  him  that 
the  Animosities  are  mortal,  but  the  Humanities  live  for  ever — and  that 
Leigh  Hunt  has  more  talent  in  his  little  finger  than  the  puling  prig,  who 
has  taken  upon  himself  to  lecture  Christopher  North  in  a  scrawl  crawling 
with  forgotten  falsehoods."  °- 

Professor  Wilson's  invitation  to  Hunt  to  contribute  to  his 
magazine  was  declined  politely  but  firmly.  Leigh  Hunt  wrote 
to  Charles  Cowden  Clarke :  "  Blackwood's  and  I,  poetically, 
are  becoming  the  best  friends  in  the  world.  The  other  day 
there  was  an  Ode  in  Blackzvood  in  honour  of  the  memory 
of  Shelley;  and  I  look  for  one  of  Keats.  I  hope  this  will 
give  you  faith  in  glimpses  of  the  Golden  Age.""^      Nowhere 

*^  Reprinted  in  the  Museum  of  Foreign  Literature,  XH,  p.  568. 

^=  August,    1834,   XXVL  p.  273. 

"  C.  C.  Clarke,  Recollections  of  Writers,  p.  244.  The  year  in  which  the 
letter  was  written  is  not  given,  but  it  must  fall  within  the  years  1833-1840, 
the  period  of  Hunt's  residence  at  Chelsea. 


146 

does  Hunt  show  resentment  or  malice  for  the  sufferings  of 
years.  Yet  Mrs.  Oliphant,  in  her  advocacy  of  the  Black- 
wood group,  goes  the  length  of  saying  that  he  displayed 
"  feebleness  of  mind  and  body,"  "  petty  meannesses,"  "  unwil- 
lingness or  incapacity  to  take  a  high  view  even  of  friends  or 
benefactors,"  a  lightheartedness  and  frivolity,  and  "  enduring 
spite."  She  grudgingly  admits  his  "  almost  feminine  grace  and 
charm."  She  says  that  he  thought  his  friends  deserved  only 
"  casual  thanks  when  they  did  what  was  but  their  manifest 
duty  .  .  .  bitter  and  spiteful  satire  when  they  attended  to  their 
own  affairs  instead."  She  makes  a  radically  false  statement 
when  she  says  that  he  defended  Byron,  Shelley,  Keats,  Moore, 
and  many  others  in  The  Exmniner,  but  found  an  opportunity 
to  say  an  evil  word  of  most  of  them  afterwards ;  and  that 
when  Blackwood's  or  the  Quarterly  attacked  him,  he  was  con- 
vinced that  "  it  must  be  really  one  of  his  friends  who  was  being 
struck  at  through  him."^* 

The  Quarterly  delayed  longer  in  assuming  a  friendly  atti- 
tude. It  remained  silent  until  1867,  when  Bulwer,  in  a  com- 
parison of  Hunt  and  Hazlitt,  conceded  to  the  former  a  grace- 
fulness and  kindliness  of  disposition,  a  smoothness  of  tone  and 
delicacy  of  finish  in  his  writing.  There  was  no  formal  apology 
as  in  the  case  of  Blackivood's. 

Carlyle  says  that  Hunt  suffered  an  "obloquy  and  calumny 
through  the  Tory  press — perhaps  a  greater  quantity  of  base- 
ness, persevering,  implacable  calumny,  than  any  other  living 
writer  has  undergone ;  which  long  course  of  hostility  .  .  .  may 
be  regarded  as  the  beginning  of  his  worst  distresses,  and  a 
main  cause  of  them  down  to  this  day.""^  Macaulay  said : 
"  There  is  hardly  a  man  living  whose  merits  have  been  so 
grudgingly  allowed,  and  whose  faults  have  been  so  cruelly 
expiated."^*'  For  a  period  of  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury, from  the  beginning  of  the  crusade  against  him  until  about 
1845,  partly  as  the  result  of  the  misrepresentation  of  the  press, 

'^The   Victorian  Age,  I,  pp.   94-101. 
""  Hunt,  Autobiography,  II,  p.  267. 

"*  Critical,  Historical  and  Miscellaneous  Essays,  New  York  and  Boston, 
i860,  IV,  p.  350. 


147 

and  partly  as  a  natural  consequence  of  his  own  foibles  and 
early  blunders,  a  pretty  general  antagonism  existed  against 
him.  At  the  end  of  that  time  his  honesty  and  talents  were  rec- 
ognized and  rewarded  publicly  by  the  government.  And  the 
public  has  come  more  and  more  to  esteem  his  personal  char- 
acter. 

The  Quarterly  of  April,  1818,  contained  the  stupid  and 
savage  review  of  Endymion,  provoked  almost  solely  by  the 
Keats's  offence  in  being  the  friend  and  public  protege  of  Leigh 
Hunt.  The  simple  and  manly  preface^'^  was  misconstrued  into 
a  formula  for  Huntian  poetry,  and  its  allusion  to  a  "  London 
drizzle  or  a  Scotch  mist "  into  a  "  deprecation  of  criticism  in  a 
feverish  manner."  Leigh  Hunt  asked  years  afterwards  how 
"  anybody  could  answer  such  an  appeal  to  the  mercy  of 
strength  with  the  cruelty  of  weakness.  All  the  good  for  which 
Mr.  Gifford  pretended  to  be  zealous,  he  might  have  effected 
with  pain  to  no  one,  and  glory  to  himself ;  and  therefore  all  the 
evil  he  mixed  with  it  was  of  his  own  making."^^  The  general 
trend  of  the  article  and  the  reviewer's  acknowledgment  that 
he  had  read  only  the  first  book  of  the  poem  are  well  known. 
The  following  passage  refers  directly  to  Keats's  connection 
with  Hunt : 

"  The  author  is  a  copyist  of  Mr.  Hunt,  but  he  is  more  unintelligible,  almost 
as  rugged,  twice  as  diffuse,  and  ten  times  more  tiresome  and  absurd  than 
his  prototype ;  who,  though  he  impudently  presumed  to  seat  himself  in  the 
chair  of  criticism,  and  to  measure  his  own  poetry  by  his  own  standard, 
yet  generally  had  a  meaning.  But  Mr.  Keats  advanced  no  dogmas  which 
he  was  bound  to  support  by  examples ;  his  nonsense  is  therefore  quite 
gratuitous ;  he  writes  it  for  his  own  sake,  and,  being  bitten  by  Mr.  Leigh 
Hunt's  insane  criticism,  more  than  rivals  the  insanity  of  his  poetry."  " 

^  The  first  preface  to  Endymion  was  rejected  by  Keats  on  the  advice  of 
his  friends  who  thought  that  it  was  in  the  vain  yet  deprecating  tone  of 
Hunt's  prefaces.  To  this  charge  Keats  replied :  "  I  am  not  aware  that 
there  is  anything  like  Hunt  in  it  (and  if  there  is,  it  is  my  natural  way,  and 
I  have  something  in  common  with  Hunt)."  The  second  preface  justifies  the 
charge. 

'^"London  Journal,  January  21,   1835. 

"'Of  Southey's  attack  on  Hunt  and  others  in  May,  1818,  Keats  wrote: 
"  I  have  more  than  a  laurel  from  the  Quarterly  Reviewers,  for  they  have 
smothered  me  in  'Foliage.'"      {Works,  IV,  p.  115.) 


148 

Blackzi'ood's  followed  the  Quarterly's  lead  in  August,  re- 
viewing Keats's  first  volume  at  the  same  time  with  Endytnion. 
He  is  reproached  with  madness,  with  metromania,  with  low 
origin,  with  perversion  of  talents  suited  only  to  an  apprentice- 
ship, all  because  he  admired  Hunt  sufficiently  to  adopt  some  of 
his  theories  and  because  he  had  been  called  in  The  Examiner 
one  of  "  two  stars  of  glorious  magnitude."  The  sonnet  Written 
on  the  day  that  Mr.  Leigh  Hunt  left  prison,  the  Sonnet  to 
Haydon,  and  Sleep  and  Poetry,  are  anathematized.  In  the 
last  Keats  is  said  to  speak  with 

"  contempt  of  some  of  the  most  exquisite  spirits  that  the  world  ever  pro- 
duced, merely  because  they  did  not  happen  to  exert  their  faculties  in  la- 
borious affected  descriptions  of  flowers  seen  in  window-pots,  or  cascades 
heard  at  Vauxhall  ;  in  short,  because  they  chose  to  be  wits,  philosophers, 
patriots,  and  poets,  rather  than  to  found  the  Cockney  school  of  versification, 
morality  and  politics,  a  century  before  its  time.  After  blaspheming  him- 
self into  a  fury  against  Boileau,  etc.,  Mr.  Keats  comforts  himself  and  his 
readers  with  a  view  of  the  present  more  promising  state  of  affairs ;  above 
all,  with  the  ripened  glories  of  the  poet  of  Rimini." 

The  denunciation  of  the  "  calm,  settled,  drivelling  idiocy  "  of 
Endymion  in  the  same  article  is  famous,  but  in  a  discussion  of 
the  Cockney  School  it  is  well  to  recall  the  following: 

"  From  his  prototype  Hunt,  John  Keats  has  acquired  a  sort  of  vague  idea, 
that  the  Greeks  were  a  most  tasteful  people,  and  that  no  mythology  can 
be  so  finely  adopted  for  the  purpose  of  poetry  as  theirs.  It  is  amusing  to 
see  what  a  hand  the  Cockneys  make  of  this  mythology ;  the  one  confesses 
that  he  never  read  the  Greek  Tragedians  and  the  other  knows  Homer  only 
from  Chapman  ;  and  both  of  them  write  about  Apollo,  Pan,  Nymphs,  Muses, 
and  Mysteries,  as  might  be  expected  from  persons  of  their  education.  We 
shall  not,  however,  enlarge  at  present  upon  this  subject,  as  we  mean  to 
dedicate  an  entire  paper  to  the  classical  attainments  and  attempts  of  the 
Cockney  poets." 

The  versification  is  said  to  expose  the  defects  of  Hunt's  system 
ten  times  more  than  Hunt's  own  poetry.  The  mocking  close 
is  as  follows :  "  It  is  a  better  and  a  wiser  thing  to  be  a  starved 
apothecary  than  a  starved  poet ;  so  back  to  the  shop,  Mr.  John, 
back  to  'plasters,  pills,  and  ointment  boxes,'  etc.  But,  for 
Heaven's  sake,  young  Sangrado,  be  a  little  more  sparing  of 
extenuatives  and  soporifics  in  your  practice  than  you  have 
been  in  your  poetry." 


149 

The  delusion  that  these  articles  were  the  direct  cause  of 
Keats's  death,  an  impression  given  wide  currency  by  the  pas- 
sages in  Adonais^^  and  Don  Jtian,^'^  has  long  since  been  dis- 
pelled by  the  evidence  of  Hunt,"-  Fanny  Brawne,  C.  C.  Clarke 
and,  most  important  of  all,  Keats's  own  letters.^^  It  is  not 
likely  that  he  was  affected  by  them  as  much  as  either  Hunt  or 
Hazlitt,  for  he  showed  more  indifference  and  greater  dignity 
under  fire  than  either.  His  courage  and  his  craving  for  future 
fame  do  not  seem  to  have  wavered  during  the  year  in  which 
they  appeared.  Joseph  Severn  has  testified  that  he  never  heard 
Keats  mention  Blackzvood's  and  that  he  considered  what  his 
friend  endured  from  the  press  as  "  one  of  the  least  of  his 
miseries  " ;  that  he  knew  so  little  about  the  whole  matter  that 
when  he  met  Sir  Walter  Scott  in  Rome  many  years  after  he 
was  at  a  loss  to  understand  Scott's  embarrassment  when 
Keats's  name  was  mentioned ;  and  it  was  not  until  a  friend 
afterwards  explained  that  Scott  was  connected  with  one  of  the 
magazines  which  was  popularly  supposed  to  have  caused 
Keats's  death  that  he  could  fathom  it.*''* 

It  would  have  been  impossible  for  a  more  obtuse  man  than 
Leigh  Hunt  not  to  have  realized  from  the  import  of  these  two 
articles  that  Keats  was  abused  largely  because  of  the  associa- 
tion with  himself  and,  but  for  that,  might  have  remained 
in  peaceful  obscurity.  Hunt  therefore  wisely  refrained  from 
further  defense  as  it  would  only  have  made  matters  worse. 
During  the  year  1818  only  one  notice  of  Keats  appeared  in 

*"  Shelley  wrote  also  a  letter  to  the  Quarterly  Reviezv  remonstrating 
against  its  treatment  of  Keats  but  the  letter  was  never  sent.  (Milnes,  Life, 
Letters  and  Literary  Remains  of  John  Keats,  I,  p.  208  ff.) 

"  In  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of  His  Contemporaries,  Hunt  states  that  he 
informed  Byron  of  his  mistake  and  received  a  promise  that  it  would  be 
altered,  but  that  the  rhyme  about  article  and  particle  was  too  good  to  throw 
away  (p.  266). 

"^Just  before  leaving  England,  Keats  with  Hunt  visited  the  house  where 
Tom  had  died.  He  told  Hunt  in  this  connection  that  he  was  "  dying  of  a 
broken  heart."     {Literary  Exatniner,  1823,  p.  117.) 

'^  Works,  IV,  pp.  42-43,  169-171,  174,  177,  194;  V,  pp.  27,  29. 

^Atlantic  Monthly,  XI,  p.  406. 


150 

The  Examiner.^^  During  the  same  year  three  sonnets  to  Keats 
appeared  in  Foliage.  Yet  it  has  been  several  times  stated  that 
Hunt  forsook  Keats  at  this  time.  Keats,  under  the  hallucina- 
tion of  disease  himself,  accused  Hunt  of  neglect,  yet  there 
were  three  reasons  which  made  a  persistent  defense  on  the 
part  of  Hunt  not  to  be  expected.  First,  he  was  unaware,  ac- 
cording to  his  own  statement,  of  the  extent  of  the  defamation ; 
second,  he  realized  that  his  championship  and  friendship  had 
been  the  original  cause  of  wrath  in  the  enemies'  camp  against 
Keats  and  that  any  activity  on  his  part  would  only  incense  them 
further,''®  and  third,  he  did  not  approve  of  Keats's  only  pub- 
lication of  that  year  and  could  not  give  it  his  support,  as  he 
frankly  told  Keats  himself.  Mr.  Forman  and  Mr.  Rossetti 
both  scout  the  idea  of  disertion  and  disloyalty.  Yet  Mr.  Hall 
Caine  has  made  much®^  of  a  charge  which  has  been  denied  by 
Hunt  and  ultimately  repudiated  by  Keats.  He  has,  moreover, 
overlooked  the  fact  that  Hunt's  bitter  satire,  Ultra-Crepidarius, 
was  written  in  1818  as  a  reply  to  Keats's  critics  but  was  with- 
held from  publication,  presumably  only  for  reasons  of  pru- 
dence, until  1823.  When  Keats's  feeling  on  the  subject  was 
brought  to  his  knowledge  years  later.  Hunt  wrote: 

"  Keats  appears  to  have  been  of  opinion  that  I  ought  to  have  taken 
more  notice  of  what  the  critics  said  against  him.  And  perhaps  I  ought. 
My  notices  of  them  may  not  have  been  sufficient.  I  may  have  too  much 
contented  myself  with  panegyrizing  his  genius,  and  thinking  the  objections 
to  it  of  no  ultimate  importance.  Had  he  given  me  a  hint  to  another 
effect,  I  should  have  acted  upon  it.  But  in  truth,  as  I  have  before  inti- 
mated,  I   did  not  see  a  twentieth  part  of  what  was   said  against  us  ;  nor 

"*  October  ii,  1818.  It  included  two  reprints  from  other  papers.  The 
first  was  a  letter  taken  from  the  Morning  Chronicle  signed  J.  S.  It  pre- 
dicted that  if  Keats  would  "  apostatise  his  friendship,  his  principles,  and 
his  politics  (if  he  have  any)  he  may  even  command  the  approbation  of  the 
Quarterly  Review."  This  was  followed  by  extracts  from  an  article  by 
John  Hamilton  Reynolds  in  the  Alfred  Exeter  Paper  praising  Keats  for  his 
power  of  vitalizing  heathen  mythology  and  for  his  resemblance  to  Chapman 
and  calling  Gifford  "  a  Lottery  Commissioner  and  Government  Pensioner " 
who  persecuted  Keats  by  "  intrigue  of  literature  and  contrivance  of  politi- 
cal parties." 

^  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  suggests  this  possibility  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Hall 
Caine.     (Caine,  Recollections  of  Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti,  p.  179.) 

^''Cobwebs  of  Criticism,  p.  137. 


151 

had  I  the  slightest  notion,  at  that  period,  that  he  took  criticism  sn  much  to 
heart.  I  was  in  the  habit,  though  a  public  man,  of  living  in  a  world  of 
abstractions  of  my  own  ;  and  I  regarded  him  as  of  a  nature  still  more  ab- 
stracted,  and  sure  of  renown.  Though  I  was  a  politician  (so  to  speak), 
I  had  scarcely  a  political  work  in  my  library.  Spensers  and  Arabian  Tales 
filled  up  the  shelves ;  and  Spenser  himself  was  not  remoter,  in  my  eyes,  from 
all  the  common-places  of  life,  than  my  new  friend.  Our  whole  talk  was 
made  up  of  idealisms.  In  the  streets  we  were  in  the  thick  of  the  old  woods. 
I  little  suspected,  as  I  did  afterwards,  that  the  hunters  had  struck  him  ; 
and  never  at  any  time  did  I  suspect  that  he  could  have  imagined  it  desired 
by  his  friends.     Let  me  quit  the  subject  of  so  afflicting  a  delusion.'"* 

The  Edinburgh  Review  of  August,  1820,  discussed  En- 
dymion  and  the  1820  volume.  While  it  lamented  the  extrava- 
gances and  obscurities,  the  "  intoxication  of  sweetness  "  and  the 
perversion  of  rhyme,  it  gave  Keats  due  credit  for  his  genius 
and  his  appreciation  of  the  spirit  of  poetry.  Hunt's  review 
of  Lamia^^  and  the  other  poems  of  the  1820  volume  appeared 
in  The  Indicator  of  the  same  month.  Blackwood's  answered 
the  next  month,  abusing  Hunt  roundly  and  faintly  praising  the 
poems.  The  following  proves  that  their  chief  object  was  to 
strike  Hunt  through  Keats : 

"  It  is  a  pity  that  this  young  man,  John  Keats,  author  of  Endymion,  and 
some  other  poems,  should  have  belonged  to  the  Cockney  School — for  he  is 
evidently  possessed  of  talents  that,  under  better  direction,  might  have  done 
very  considerable  things.  As  it  is,  he  bids  fair  to  sink  himself  beneath 
such  a  mass  of  affectation,  conceit,  and  Cockney  pedantry,  as  I  never  ex- 
pected to  see  heaped  together  by  anybody,  except  the  first  founder  of  the 
School  .  .  .  There  is  much  merit  in  some  of  the  stanzas  of  Mr.  Keats's 
last  volume,  which  I  have  just  seen ;  no  doubt  he  is  a  fine  feeling  lad — and 
I  hope  he  will  live  to  despise  Leigh  Hunt  and  be  a  poet." 

Hazlitt,  in  May  of  the  next  year  wrote  of  the  persecution  of 
Keats  in  the  Edinburgh  Reviczu: 

"  Nor  is  it  only  obnoxious  writers  on  politics  themselves,  but  all  their 
friends  and  acquaintances,  and  those  whom  they  casually  notice,  that  come 
under  their  sweeping  anathema.  It  is  proper  to  make  a  clear  stage.  The 
friends  of  Caesar  must  not  be  suspected  of  an  amicable  intercourse  with 
patriotic  and  incendiary  writers.  A  young  poet  comes  forward ;  an  early 
and  favourable  notice  appears  of  some  boyish  verses  of  his  in  the  Examiner, 
independently  of  all  political  opinion.     That  alone  decides  fate ;  and  from 

"  Autobiography,  II,  p.  43. 
*  See  p.  so  ff. 


152 

that  moment  lie  is  set  upon,  pulled  in  pieces,  and  hunted  into  his  grave  by 
the  whole  venal  crew  in  full  cry  after  him.  It  was  crime  enough  that  he 
dared  to  accept  praise  from  so  disreputable  a  quarter." 

In  a  letter  from  Hunt  in  Italy  to  The  Examiner,  July  7,  1822, 
an  inquiry  is  made  why  Mr.  Gifford  has  never  noticed  Keats's 
last  volume :  "  that  beautiful  volume  containing  Lamia,  the 
story  from  Boccaccio,  and  that  magnificent  fragment  Hy- 
perionf"  Blackwood's  of  August  replied  to  these  two  de- 
fenses in  a  tirade  of  twenty-two  pages  against  the  Edinburgh 
Revieiv,  Hazlitt,  and  Hunt.  The  Nodes  Amhrosianae  of 
October  continued  in  the  same  strain  and,  though  the  grave 
should  have  protected  Keats  from  such  banter,  revived  the  old 
allusions  to  the  apothecary  and  his  pills. 

In  self  defense  against  the  charge,  that  its  attacks  and  those 
of  the  Quarterly  had  broken  Keats's  heart,  Blackwood's  in 
January,  1826,  said  that  it  alone  had  dealt  with  Keats,  Shelley 
and  Procter  with  "common  sense  or  common  feeling";  that, 
seeing  Keats  in  the  road  to  ruin  with  the  Cockneys,  it  had 
"  tried  to  save  him  by  wholesome  and  severe  discipline — they 
drove  him  to  poverty,  expatriation  and  death."  The  most 
remarkable  part  of  this  remarkable  justification  is  this :  "  Keats 
outhunted  Hunt  in  a  species  of  emasculated  pruriency,  that, 
although  invented  in  Little  Britain,  looks  as  if  it  were  the 
prospect  of  some  imaginative  Eunuch's  muse  within  the  melan- 
choly inspiration  of  the  Haram  "(.sic). 

In  March,  1828,  in  a  review  of  Lord  Byron  and  Some  of 
His  Contemporaries,  the  Quarterly  seized  the  opportunity  to 
revert  to  the  author's  friendship  for  Keats  in  its  old  hostile 
manner;  and,  in  a  criticism  of  Coleridge's  poems  in  August, 
1834,  to  speak  of  his  "dreamy,  half-swooning  style  of  verse 
criticised  by  Lord  Byron  (in  language  too  strong  for  print) 
as  the  fatal  sin  of  Mr.  John  Keats."  Finally  in  March,  1840, 
in  Journalism  in  France,  there  is  another  feeble  effort  at  de- 
fense; a  resentment  of  the  "twaddle"  against  the  Quarterly 
"  when  they  had  the  misfortune  to  criticise  a  sickly  poet,  who 
died  soon  afterwards,  apparently  for  the  express  purpose  of 
dishonoring  us." 

One  of  Hunt's  utterances  in  regard  to  Keats  and  his  critics 
disposes  finally  of  the  matter :  "  his  fame  may  now  forgive  the 


153 

critics  who  disliked  his  politics,  and  did  not  understand  his 
poetry.'"^*' 

From  Italy  Shelley  wrote  to  Peacock : 

"  I  most  devoutly  wish  I  were  living  near  London.  .  .  .  My  inclination 
points  to  Hampstead ;  but  I  do  not  know  whether  I  should  not  make  up 
my  mind  to  something  more  completely  suburban.  What  are  mountains, 
trees,  heaths,  or  even  glorious  and  ever  beautiful  sky,  with  such  sunsets  as 
I  have  seen  at  Hampstead,  to  friends?  Social  enjoyment,  in  some  form  or 
other,  is  the  Alpha  and  the  Omega  of  existence.  All  that  I  see  in  Italy — 
and  from  my  tower  window  I  now  see  the  magnificent  peaks  of  the  Apen- 
nine  half  enclosing  the  plain — is  nothing.  It  dwindles  into  smoke  in  the 
mind,  when  I  think  of  some  familiar  forms  of  scenery,  little  perhaps  in 
themselves,  over  which  old  remembrances  have  thrown  a  delightful  colour."" 

The  attacks  of  the  Quarterly  of  May,  1818,  on  Shelley's  pri- 
vate life  and  of  April,  1819,  on  the  Revolt  of  Islam,  and  the 
reply  of  The  Examiner,  have  already  been  discussed  on  p.  yy 
of  the  third  chapter.  The  assault  was  renewed  in  October, 
1821.  The  dominating  characteristic  of  Shelley's  poetry  is 
said  to  be  "  its  frequent  and  total  want  of  meaning."  In  Pro- 
metheus Unbound  there  were  said  to  be  many  absurdities  "  in 
defiance  of  common  sense  and  even  of  grammar  ...  a  mere 
jumble  of  words  and  heterogeneous  ideas,  connected  by  slight 
and  accidental  associations,  among  which  it  is  impossible  to 
distinguish  the  principal  object  from  the  accessory."  The  poem 
is  declared  to  be  full  of  "  flagrant  offences  against  morality  and 
religion  "  and  the  poet  to  have  gone  out  of  his  way  to  "  revile 
Christianity  and  its  author."  As  a  final  verdict  the  reviewer 
says :  "  Mr.  Shelley's  poetry  is,  in  sober  sadness,  drivelling 
prose  run  mad  ...  Be  his  private  qualities  what  they  may,  his 
poems  .  .  .  are  at  war  with  reason,  with  taste,  with  virtue,  in 
short,  with  all  that  dignifies  man,  or  that  man  reveres."  The 
London  Literary  Gocette  joined  its  forces  to  the  Quarterly  and 
scored  Prometheus  Unbound  in  1820,  Queen  Mab  in  1821. 
The  Examiner  of  June  16,  23  and  July  7,  1822,  contained 
Hunt's  answer  to  the  two  onslaughts.  He  accused  the  writer 
in  the  Quarterly  of  having  used  six  stars  to  indicate  an  omis- 
sion, in  order  to  imply  that  the  name  of  Christ  had  been  blas- 

'"  Imagination  and  Fancy,  p.  230. 

"  Dowden,  Life  of  Shelley,  II,  p.  274. 


154 

phemously  used;  of  having  put  quotation  marks  to  sentences 
not  in  the  author  criticised  and  of  having  intentionally  left  out 
so  much  at  times  as  to  make  the  context  seem  absurd.  At  the 
same  time  Hunt  stated  that  he  agreed  that  Shelley's  poetry  was 
of  "  too  abstract  and  metaphysical  a  cast  .  .  .  too  wilful  and 
gratuitous  in  its  metaphors " ;  and  that  it  would  have  been 
better  if  he  had  kept  metaphysics  and  polemics  out  of  poetry. 
But  at  the  same  time  he  asserted  that  Shelley  had  written  much 
that  was  unmetaphysical  and  poetically  beautiful,  as  The  Cenci, 
the  Ode  to  a  Skylark  and  Adonais.  Of  the  second  he  wrote: 
"  I  know  of  nothing  more  beautiful  than  this, — more  choice  of 
tones,  more  natural  in  words,  more  abundant  in  exquisite,  cor- 
dial, and  most  poetic  associations."  He  characterized  Southey's 
reviews  as  cant,  Gifford's  as  bitter  commonplace  and  Croker's 
as  pettifogging. 

Blackzvood's  reviewed  Adonais  and  The  Cenci  in  December, 
1 82 1.  The  Delia  Cruscans  were  reported  to  have  come  again 
from  "  retreats  of  Cockney  dalliance  in  the  London  suburbs  " 
and  "  by  wainloads  from  Pisa."  The  Cockneys  were  said  to 
hate  everything  that  was  good  and  true  and  honorable,  all 
moral  ties  and  Christian  principles,  and  to  be  steeped  in  des- 
perate licentiousness.  Adonais  is  fifty-five  stanzas  of  "unin- 
telligible stuff"  made  up  of  every  possible  epithet  that  the 
poet  has  been  able  to  "  conglomerate  in  his  piracy  through  the 
Lexicon."  The  sense  has  been  wholly  subordinated  to  the 
rhymes.  The  author  is  a  "  glutton  of  names  and  colours  "  and 
has  accomplished  no  more  than  might  be  done  on  such  subjects 
as  Mother  Goose,  Waterloo  or  Tom  Thumb.  Two  cruel  and 
loathsome  parodies  follow :  Wouther  the  city  marshal  broke 
his  leg  and  an  Elegy  on  My  Tom  Cat,  which,  it  is  claimed,  are 
less  nonsensical,  verbose  and  inflated  than  Adonais.  The 
Cenci  is  "  a  vulgar  vocabulary  of  rottenness  and  reptilism  "  in 
an  "  odiferous,  colorific  and  daisy-enamoured  style."  It  is 
regretted  by  the  writer  that  it  is  impossible  to  believe  that 
Shelley's  reason  is  unsettled,  for  this  would  be  the  best  apology 
for  the  poem.'^^ 

"  Other  hostile  reviews  of  The  Cenci  appeared  in  the  Literary  Gazette 
of  April  I,  1820;  the  Monthly  Magasine  of  the  same  month;  and  the 
London  Magazine  of  May  of  the  same  year. 


156 

When  The  Liberal  was  organized  Shelley  was  spoken  of 
thus: 

'■  But  Percy  Bysshe  Shelly  has  now  published  a  long  series  of  poems,  the 
only  object  of  which  seems  to  be  the  promotion  of  atheism  and  incest; 
and  we  can  no  longer  hesitate  to  avow  our  belief,  that  he  is  as  worthy  of 
co-operating  with  the  King  of  Cockaigne,  as  he  is  unworthy  of  co-operating 
with  Lord  Byron.  Shelley  is  a  man  of  genius,  but  he  has  no  sort  of 
sense  or  judgment.  He  is  merely  '  an  inspired  idiot.'  Leigh  Hunt  is  a  man 
of  talents,  but  vanity  and  vulgarity  neutralize  all  his  efforts  to  pollute 
the  public  mind.  Lord  Byron  we  regard  not  only  as  a  man  of  lofty  genius, 
but  of  great  shrewdness  and  knowledge  of  the  world.  What  can  he  seri- 
ously hope  from  associating  his  name  with  such  people  as  these?"" 

As  in  the  case  of  Keats,  Blackwood's  did  not  have  the 
decency  to  desist  from  its  indecent  articles  after  Shelley's 
death.  September,  1824,  this  vulgar  ridicule  of  the  two  dead 
poets  appeared  in  answer  to  Bryan  Waller  Procter's  review  of 
Shelley's  poems  in  the  preceding  number  of  the  Edinburgh 
Review: 

"  Mr.  Shelley  died,  it  seems,  with  a  volume  of  Mr.  Keats's  poetry  grasped 
with  the  hand  in  his  bosom — rather  an  awkward  posture,  as  you  will  be 
convinced  if  you  try  it.  But  what  a  rash  man  Shelley  was,  to  put  to  sea 
in  a  frail  boat  with  Jack's  poetry  on  board.  Why,  man,  it  would  sink  a 
trireme.  In  the  preface  to  Mr.  Shelley's  poems  we  are  told  that  his 
'  vessel  bore  out  of  sight  with  a  favorable  wind ; '  but  what  is  that  to  the 
purpose?  It  had  Endymion  on  board,  and  there  was  an  end.  Seventeen 
ton  of  pig  iron  would  not  be  more  fatal  ballast.  Down  went  the  boat  with 
a  '  swirl ' !     I  lay  a  wager  that  it  righted  soon  after  evicting  Jack." 

In  the  face  of  these  articles  against  it  as  evidence,  Black- 
tvood's,  as  early  as  January,  1828,  had  the  audacity  to  claim — 
perhaps  with  the  expectation  that  its  audience  was  gifted  with 
a  sense  of  subtle  humor — that  Shelley  had  been  praised  in  its 
pages  for  his  fortitude,  patience,  and  many  other  noble  quali- 
ties, and  that  this  praise  had  irritated  the  other  Cockneys  and 
made  the  whole  trouble.  If  Keats  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the 
Edinburgh  dictators  for  his  association  with  Hunt  the  balance 
weighed  in  the  other  direction  in  the  case  of  Shelley.  All  the 
crimes  and  opinions  of  which  he  was  deemed  guilty  were 
passed  on  to  Hunt.     But  Hunt  gladly  suffered  for  Shelley. 

^'Blackwood's,  January,   1822. 


156 

Hazlitt,  although  of  Irish  descent  and  a  native  of  Shropshire, 
and  of  such  independence  as  to  belong  to  no  school  whatsoever, 
came  in  for  a  share  of  abuse  second  only  in  virulence  to  that 
showered  on  Hunt.'^*  In  the  Quarterly  of  April,  1817,  in  a 
review  of  the  Round  Table,  probably  in  retaliation  for  his 
abuse  of  Southey  in  Tlie  Examiner,  Hazlitt's  papers  are  de- 
nominated "  vulgar  descriptions,  silly  paradoxes,  flat  truisms, 
misty  sophistry,  broken  English,  ill-humour  and  rancorous 
abuse."  His  characterizations  of  Pitt  and  Burke  are  "  vulgar 
and  foul  invective,"  and  "  loathsome  trash."  The  author  might 
have  described  washerwomen  forever,  the  reviewer  asserts, 
"but  if  the  creature,  in  his  endeavours  to  see  the  light,  must 
make  his  way  over  the  tombs  of  illustrious  men,  disfiguring  the 
records  of  their  greatness  with  the  slime  and  filth  which  marks 
his  tracks,  it  is  right  to  point  out  that  he  may  be  flung  back  to 
the  situation  in  which  nature  designed  that  he  should  grovel." 

The  Characters  of  Shakespeare's  Plays  was  made  an  excuse 
for  dissecting  the  morals  and  understanding  of  this  "poor 
cankered  creature. "^^  The  Lectures  on  the  English  Poets  is 
characterized  as  a  "  third  predatory  incursion  on  taste  and 
common  sense  .  .  .  either  completely  unintelligible,  or  exhibits 
only  faint  and  dubious  glimpses  of  meaning  ...  of  that 
happy  texture  that  leaves  not  a  trace  in  the  mind  of  either 
reader  or  hearer."'"  The  Political  Essays  was  said  to  mark 
the  writer  as  a  death's  head  hawk-moth,  a  creature  already 
placed  in  a  state  of  damnation,  the  drudge  of  The  Examiner, 
the  ward  of  Billingsgate,  the  slanderer  of  the  human  race,  one 
of  the  plagues  of  England. '^^  Later,  in  a  discussion  of  Table 
Talk,'^^  he  becomes  a  "  Slang- Whanger  "  ("a  gabbler  who  em- 
ploys slang  to  amuse  the  rabble"). 

Hazlitt's  Letter  to  Gifford,  1819,  was  a  reply  to  all  previous 
attacks  of  the  Quarterly.  For  a  pamphlet  of  eighty-seven 
pages  on  such  a  subject  it  is  "  lively  reading,"  for  Hazlitt,  like 
Burke,  as  Mr.  Birrell  has  remarked,  excelled  in  a  quarrel.'^^ 

"  Alexander    Ireland    has    pointed    out    curious    correspondences    in    the 
lives  and  intrests  of  Hazlitt  and  Hunt.     (Memoir  of  Hazlitt,  pp.  474-476.) 
'''^Quarterly,  May,  1818.  '"Ibid.,  July,  1819. 

'"'Ihid.,  December,  1818.  ''^  Ibid.,  October,  1821. 

"Birrell,  William  Hazlitt,  New  York,  1902,  p.  147. 


157 

He  calls  Gifford  a  cat's  paw,  the  Government  critic,  the  pay- 
master of  the  band  of  Gentleman  Pensioners,  a  nuisance,  a 

"  dull,  envious,  pragmatical,  low-bred  man.  .  .  .  Grown  old  in  the  service 
of  corruption,  he  drivels  on  to  the  last  with  prostituted  impotence  and 
shameless  effrontery ;  salves  a  meagre  reputation  for  wit,  by  venting  the 
driblets  and  spleen  of  his  wrath  on  others ;  answers  their  arguments  by 
confuting  himself ;  mistakes  habitual  obtuseness  of  intellect  for  a  particular 
acuteness ;  not  to  be  imposed  upon  by  shallow  appearances ;  unprincipled 
rancour  for  zealous  loyalty ;  and  the  irritable,  discontented,  vindictive, 
peevish  effusions  of  bodily  pain  and  mental  imbecility  for  proofs  of  refine- 
ment of  taste  and  strength  of  understanding."  "* 

Blackzvood's  had  accepted  abstracts  of  Hazlitt's  Lectures  on 
the  English  Poets^^  from  P.  G.  Patmore  without  comment  and 
even  managed  a  lengthy  comparison  of  Jeffrey  and  Hazlitt 
with  an  approach  to  fair  dealing.  But  by  August,  1818,  he 
had  been  identified  with  the  "  Cockney  crew  "  and  he  became 
"  that  wild,  black-bill  Hazlitt,"  a  "  lounge  in  third-rate  book- 
shops " ;  and  as  a  critic  of  Shakspere,  a  gander  gabbling  at  that 
"  divine  swan."  In  April  of  the  following  year  he  was  christ- 
ened the  "  Aristotle  "  of  the  Cockneys.  His  Table  Talk  pro- 
voked ten  pages  of  vituperation,^-  and  Liber  Amoris,  two 
reviews  as  coarse  as  the  provocation.^^  In  the  first  of  these, 
apropos  of  his  contributions  to  the  Edinburgh  Reviezv  and  in 
particular  of  his  article  on  the  Periodical  Press  of  Britain,  the 
downfall  of  the  magazine  and  its  editor  is  announced  as  cer- 
tain. Hazlitt  is  called  a  literary  flunky,  a  sore,  an  ulcer,  a  poor 
devil.  In  the  second  he  is  Hunt's  orderly,  the  "  Mars  of  the 
Hampstead  heavy  dragoons." 

Hazlitt  found  relief  for  his  feelings  by  threatening  Black- 
wood's with  a  lawsuit.  Yet  in  July,  1824,  appeared  an  elabo- 
rate comparison  of  Hunt  and  Plazlitt  in  Blackzuood's  choicest 
manner  and  in  March,  1825,  a  review  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Age. 

"*"  The  Examiner  of  March  7'  and  14,  1819,  contained  extracts  from  the 
Letter  and  comments  by  Hunt  upon  this  "  quint-essential  salt  of  an 
epistle,"  as  he  called  it.  Lamb's  Letter  to  Soiithey,  already  referred  to, 
contained  a  defense  of  Hazlitt  as  well  as  of  Hunt. 

''February,   1818-April,   18 19. 

'^August,  1822. 

"August,  1823;  October,  1823. 


158 

After  1828  the  defamatory  articles  ceased  entirely.  In  1867 
appeared  what  might  be  construed  into  an  attempt  at  repara- 
tion by  Bulwer-Lytton.  Hazlitt  was  still  spoken  of  as  the 
most  aggressive  of  the  Cockneys,  discourteous  and  unscrupu- 
lous, a  bitter  politician  who  would  substitute  universal  submis- 
sion to  Napoleon  for  established  monarchial  institutions ;  but 
he  is  credited  with  strong  powers  of  reason,  of  judicial  criti- 
cism and  of  metaphysical  speculation,  and  with  perception  of 
sentiment,  truth  and  beauty. 


CHAPTER   VI 
Conclusion 

It  is  curious  that,  in  the  Hves  of  three  such  geniuses  as 
Shelley,  Byron  and  Keats  a  man  of  lesser  gifts  and  of  weaker 
fibre  should  have  played  so  large  a  part  as  did  Leigh  Hunt. 
It  is  more  curious  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  period  of  inti- 
mate association  in  each  case  extended  over  only  a  few  years. 
The  explanation  must  be  sought  in  the  accident  of  the  age 
and  in  the  personality  of  the  man  himself,  it  was  an  era  of 
stirring  action  and  of  strong  feeling.  Men  were  clamoring 
for  freedom  from  the  trammels  of  the  past  and  were  press- 
ing forward  to  the  new  day.  Through  the  union  of  some  of 
the  qualities  of  the  pioneer  and  of  the  prophet,  Leigh  Hunt 
was  thrust  into  a  position  of  prominence  that  he  might  not 
have  gained  at  any  other  time,  for  he  lacked  the  vital  requisites 
of  true  leadership. 

His  personal  quality  was  as  rare  as  his  opportunity.  He  had 
a  personal  ascendancy,  a  strange  fascination  born  of  the  sym- 
pathy and  chivalry,  the  sweetness  and  joyousness  of  his  nature. 
An  exotic  warmth  and  glow  worked  its  spell  upon  those  about 
him.  Barry  Cornwall  said  that  he  was  a  "  compact  of  all  the 
spring  winds  that  blew."  His  lovableness  and  very  "  genius  for 
friendship "  bound  intimately  to  him  those  who  were  thus 
attracted.  There  was,  besides,  an  elusiveness  and  an  ethereal- 
ity about  him — as  Carlyle  expressed  it — "  a  fine  tricksy  me- 
dium between  the  poet  and  the  wit,  half  a  sylph  and  half  an 
Ariel  ...  a  fairy  fluctuating  bark."  The  "  vinous  quality " 
of  his  mind,  Hazlitt  said,  intoxicated  those  who  came  in  contact 
with  him. 

In  the  case  of  Shelley  it  was  Hunt  the  man,  rather  than  the 
writer,  that  held  him.  Charm  was  the  magnet  in  a  friendship 
that,  in  its  perfection  and  deep  intimacy,  deserves  to  be  ranked 
with  the  fabled  ones  of  old — a  love  passing  the  love  of  woman. 

159 


160 

There  is  no  single  cloud  of  distrust  or  disloyalty  in  the  whole 
story  of  their  relations. 

Second  to  the  personal  tie  may  be  ranked  Hunt's  influence 
on  Shelley's  politics,  greater  in  this  instance  than  in  the  case 
of  Byron  or  Keats.  Hunt's  attitude  was  an  important  factor 
in  forming  Shelley's  political  creed.  With  Godwin,  he  drew 
Shelley's  attention  from  the  creation  of  imaginary  universes  to 
the  less  speculative  issues  of  earth.  Indeed,  Shelley's  main 
reliance  for  a  knowledge  of  political  happenings  during  many 
years,  and  practically  his  only  one  for  the  last  four  years  of 
his  life,  was  The  Examiner.  He  was  guided  and  moderated 
by  it  in  his  general  attitude.  In  the  specific  instances  already 
cited,  the  stimulus  for  poems  or  the  information  for  prose 
tracts  and  articles  can  be  directly  traced  to  Hunt. 

In  regard  to  literary  art,  Hunt  did  not  affect  Shelley  beyond 
pointing  the  way  to  a  freer  use  of  the  heroic  couplet,  and,  in  a 
limited  degree,  in  four  or  five  of  his  minor  poems,  influencing 
him  in  the  use  of  a  familiar  diction.  Only  in  his  letters  does 
Shelley  show  any  inclination  to  emphasize  "  social  enjoyments" 
or  suburban  delights.  That  the  literary  influence  was  so  slight 
is  not  surprising  when  Shelley's  powers  of  speculation  and 
accurate  scholarship  are  compared  with  Hunt's  want  of  con- 
centration and  shallow  attainments.  Notwithstanding  this 
intellectual  gulf,  strong  convictions,  with  a  moral  courage 
sufficient  to  support  them,  and  a  congeniality  of  tastes  and 
temperament,  made  possible  an  ideal  comradeship. 

Byron,  like  Shelley,  was  attracted  by  Hunt's  charm  of  per- 
sonality. An  imprisoned  martyr  and  a  persecuted  editor 
appealed  to  Byron's  love  of  the  spectacular.  Political  sym- 
pathy furthered  the  friendship.  In  a  literary  way,  Byron 
influenced  Hunt  more  than  Hunt  influenced  him. 

Their  intercourse  is  the  story  of  a  pleasant  acquaintance 
with  a  disagreeable  sequel  and  much  error  on  both  sides.  With 
two  men  of  such  varying  caliber  and  tastes,  the  "  wren  and 
eagle "  as  Shelley  called  them,  thrown  together  under  such 
trying  circumstances,  it  could  hardly  have  been  otherwise. 
Their  love  of  liberty  and  courage  of  opposition  were  the  only 
things  in  common.     Byron  recognized  to  the  last  Hunt's  good 


161 

qualities  and  Hunt,  except  for  the  bitter  years  in  Italy  and 
immediately  after  his  return,  proclaimed  Byron's  genius ;  but, 
for  all  that,  they  were  temperamentally  opposed.  Byron  de- 
tested Hunt's  small  vulgarities  as  much  as  Hunt  loathed 
Byron's  assumed  superiority. 

The  relation  with  Keats  was  the  reverse  of  that  in  the  other 
two  cases.  It  was  an  intellectual  affinity  throughout.  At  no 
time  were  Keats  and  Hunt  very  close  to  each  other.  Nor, 
indeed,  does  Keats  seem  to  have  had  the  capacity  for  intimate 
friendship,  except  with  his  brothers  and,  possibly.  Brown  and 
Severn. 

The  intercourse  of  the  two  men  had  its  disadvantages  for 
Keats  in  an  injurious  influence  on  his  early  work  and  in  the 
public  association  of  his  name  with  that  of  Hunt's ;  but  the 
latter's  literary  patronage  and  loving  interpretation  when  Keats 
was  wholly  unknown,  the  friendships  made  possible  for  him 
with  others,  the  open  home  and  tender  care  whenever  needed, 
the  unfailing  sympathy,  encouragement  and  admiration  so 
freely  given,  the  new  fields  of  art,  music  and  books  opened 
up,  and  the  pleasantness  of  the  connection  at  the  first,  should 
more  than  compensate  for  the  attacks  which  Keats  suffered 
as  a  member  of  the  Cockney  School.  From  this  view  it  seems 
very  ungrateful  of  George  Keats  to  have  said  that  he  was  sorry 
that  his  brother's  name  should  go  down  to  posterity  associated 
with  Hunt's.     Keats  received  far  more  than  he  gave  in  return. 

Briefly  stated,  Keats's  early  work  shows  the  marked  influ- 
ence of  Hunt  in  the  selection  of  subjects,  in  a  love  of  Italian 
and  older  English  literature,  in  the  "  domestic  "  touch,  in  the 
colloquial  and  feeble  diction,  and  in  the  lapses  of  taste.  It  is 
only  fair  to  Hunt  to  emphasize  that  this  was  not  wholly  a 
question  of  influence.  It  was  due,  as  Keats  himself  confessed, 
to  a  natural  affinity  of  gifts  and  tastes,  though  the  one  was  so 
much  more  highly  gifted  than  the  other.  Keats  soon  saw  his 
mistake.  Endymion  showed  a  great  improvement  and  the  1820 
volume  an  almost  complete  absence  of  his  own  bourgeois  ten- 
dencies and  of  the  effect  of  Hunt's  specious  theories.  Yet  it 
was  undoubtedly  through  Hunt  that  Keats  in  his  later  poems 
began  to  imitate  Dryden. 


162 

In  connection  with  the  work  of  all  three  poets,  Hunt's  criti- 
cism is  a  more  important  fact  of  literary  history  than  his  ser- 
vices of  friendship.  He  had,  as  Bulwer-Lytton  has  remarked, 
the  first  requisite  of  a  good  critic,  a  good  heart.  He  had  also 
wonderful  sympathy  with  aspiring  authorship.  His  insight 
was  most  remarkable  of  all  in  the  appreciation  of  his  contem- 
poraries. With  powers  of  critical  perception  that  might  be 
called  an  instinct  for  genius,  he  discovered  Shelley  and  Keats 
and  heralded  them  to  the  public.  The  same  ability  helped  him 
to  appreciate  Byron,  Hazlitt  and  Lamb.  Browning,  Tenny- 
son and  Rossetti  were  other  young  poets  whom  he  encouraged 
and  supported.  He  defended  the  Lake  School  in  1814  when 
it  still  had  many  deriders.  He  anticipated  Arnold's  judgment 
when  he  wrote  that  "  Wordsworth  was  a  fine  lettuce,  with  too 
many  outside  leaves."  As  early  as  1832  he  wrote  of  the 
"  wonderful  works  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  the  remarkable  criti- 
cism of  Hazlitt,  the  magnetism  of  Keats,  the  tragedy  and 
winged  philosophy  of  Shelley,  the  passion  of  Byron,  the  "  art 
and  festivity  of  Moore."  To  value  correctly  such  criticism  it 
is  necessary  to  remember  that  the  Romantic  movement  was 
still  in  its  first  youth  at  the  time.  His  criticism  of  the  three 
men  in  question,  like  his  criticisms  in  general,  is  distinguished 
by  great  fairness  and  absence  of  all  personal  jealousy,  by  a 
delicacy  of  feeling  that  will  not  be  fully  felt  until  scattered 
notes  and  buried  prefaces  are  gathered  together.  He  was 
animated  chiefly  by  an  inborn  love  of  poetry  and  enjoyment  of 
all  beautiful  things.  H  he  sometimes  fell  short  in  under- 
standing Homer,  Dante  and  Shakespeare,  he  was  perfectly  sin- 
cere and  independent,  and  pretended  nothing  that  he  did  not  feel. 
His  range  of  information  was  truly  remarkable,  though  not  deep 
and  accurate.  His  style  was  slipshod.  With  the  exception 
of  the  essay  What  is  Poetry,  he  fails  in  concentration  and  gen- 
eralization. He  never  clinched  his  results,  but  was  forever 
flitting  from  one  sweet  to  another.  His  method  was  impres- 
sionistic in  its  appreciation  of  physical  beauty.  There  is  no 
comprehension  whatsoever  of  mystical  beauty.  It  is  the  cu- 
rious instance  of  a  man  of  almost  ascetic  habits  who  revelled 
and  luxuriated  in  the  sensuous  beauties  of  literature.     The 


163 

reader  of  svich  books  as  Imagination  and  Fancy  and  the  half 
dozen  others  of  the  same  kind  will  see  his  wonderful  power 
of  selection.  His  attempt  to  interpret  and  "  popularize  litera- 
ture " — a  cause  in  which  he  laboured  long  and  steadfastly — 
was  one  of  the  greatest  services  he  rendered  his  age,  even  if 
his  habit  of  italicization  and  running  comment  for  the  purpose 
of  calhng  attention  to  perfectly  patent  beauties  irritated  some 
of  his  readers.  His  critical  taste,  when  exercised  on  the  work 
of  others,  was  almost  faultless.  The  occasional  vulgarities  of 
which  he  was  guilty  in  his  original  work  do  not  intrude  here ; 
they  were  superficial  and  were  not  a  part  of  the  man.  Through 
his  criticism  he  discovered  and  championed  illustrious  contem- 
poraries; he  instituted  the  Italian  revival  in  creative  litera- 
ture in  the  early  part  of  the  century ;  he  assisted  in  resuscitat- 
ing the  interest  in  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  century  literature. 
Hunt's  services  of  friendship  to  Byron,  Shelley  and  Keats, 
his  able  criticism  and  just  defense  of  them,  have  found  their 
reward  in  the  inseparable  association  of  his  name  with  their 
immortal  ones.  They  easily  surpassed  him  in  every  depart- 
ment of  writing  in  which  they  contested,  yet  the  man  was 
strong  and  alluring  enough  in  his  relations  with  them  to  prove 
a  determining  and,  on  the  whole,  beneficent  influence  in  their 
lives. 


Mf.nCMiuiLELeRARY 
NEW  YORK. 


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